Football magazine author Phil Steele has earned something of a cult following here by presciently forecasting several University of Hawaii rebounds.

In 1999, for example, he listed UH among the teams expected to make significant turnarounds, and darned if the Rainbow Warriors didn’t go from 0-12 to 9-3 for the biggest single-season major college football about-face in NCAA history to that point.

In 2001, when UH was coming off a 3-9 season, Steele tabbed UH a rising second amid a magazine consensus fifth in what became a 9-3 revival.

This year, it is revealing that while Steele touts UH as “clearly one of the most improved teams in the country …” he is nevertheless picking the Rainbow Warriors fifth in the six-member Mountain West Conference West Division.

And therein is the dilemma confronting the ’Bows, who could be significantly improved over their 3-9, ninth-place finish of 2012 but, thanks to an upgraded schedule, likely won’t have a winning season or a high finish to show for it.

Welcome to the new Mountain West and a schedule sans Lamar and South Alabama.

The sporting news talks up UH’s season-ending “two-game winning streak and a little momentum heading into this season,” and notes UH had “32 first-time starters last year, including six true freshmen.”

It lists UH as having had the third-best recruiting class in the Mountain West, but still projects the ’Bows sixth behind Nevada-Las Vegas, one of their three 2012 victims.

For what might be the first time in its history, UH opens a season with five consecutive opponents (Southern California,

Oregon State, Nevada, Fresno State and San Jose State) coming off bowl game appearances. The three — USC, Fresno and Nevada — that played UH in 2012 beat the ’Bows by an average of 39.6 points.

Overall, UH draws eight foes who played in the postseason, and is fortunate to have had encounters with three other bowl teams — Boise State, Brigham Young and Air Force — stricken from the schedule due to offseason conference changes.

Still, the result is “the schedule is brutal the first five weeks, so it might be difficult to find many signs of progress,” Lindy Sports suggests. It says, UH “could exit Sept. with an 0-4 record (for the month).” 

Small wonder then that, except for Steele, the other major preseason football guides due out this month all have UH picked sixth in a division expected to be won by Fresno State.

Boise State is the choice to win the Mountain Division in this inaugural year of a 12-team, two division format.

Overall, publications have so far ranked UH from 105th to 119th among the 125 schools that will play in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision this season.

Hope for the Rainbow Warriors to overtake somebody is being pinned on projected starting quarterback Taylor Graham. Lindy’s lists the Ohio State transfer as its “newcomer of the year” in the conference, and the magazine says, “the biggest thing at quarterback for Hawaii since Colt Brennan has to be junior Taylor Graham.”

If the ’Bows are to pull another major surprise this season, Graham might have to be.

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.