Your assignment, should you choose to accept, is to be a University of Hawaii athletic director for a day.

Sorry, one day — today — only since we here at your favorite newspaper would run afoul of the Board of Regents giving these out for a longer term. And the guy who actually has the title, David Matlin, might take offense.

As you might have heard, UH is searching for a new head football coach and is currently sorting through “more than 50” applications, officials say.

While all this paper is being shuffled your task is to scout and assess the potential of a possible candidate, Dino Babers, the head coach at Bowling Green.

Some things, after all, are too important to be left to a committee.

In keeping with UH’s meager budget — motto: “A penny saved today can be used for a buy-out tomorrow.” — you will not actually have to go to Doyt L. Perry Stadium in Ohio to accomplish the mission. Just tune in to ESPN2 today at 1 p.m. when the 8-2 Falcons play Toledo.

Everybody knows what legendary June Jones has done and, after four consecutive UH losses to Nevada, most should be familiar with what up-and-coming Nick Rolovich has accomplished in Reno. Rich Miano, you know from his work at Oceanic and UH.

But the 54-year-old Babers, who was born in Hawaii, played and coached at UH in the 1980s and married a former Rainbow Wahine volleyball player (Sue Hemmenway), has been less visible in his climb up the ladder at Baylor, UCLA, Texas A&M, Arizona, etc.

Except among schools he has beaten — Maryland and Purdue to name two this year — or those looking to hire a head coach, that is.

In four years as a head coach, what Babers has learned from Dick Tomey, Jones and Art Briles has resulted in a 35-15 head coaching record.

Bowling Green, which runs a Baylor-style offense learned in Babers’ four-year apprenticeship in Waco, is second in the Football Bowl Subdivision in passing offense (414.1 yards per game), fourth in scoring offense (45.4 points) and fifth in total offense (584.4 yards). The defensive coordinator is another former ’Bow, Kim McCloud.

In his spare time this season, Babers bolted from the team bus to help save a woman from a burning car on I-90 in Ohio, flashing some of the speed that made him UH’s leading rusher in 1983, when Jones was the offensive coordinator.

Before Babers went to Bowling Green, his Eastern Illinois team ranked first in the Football Championship Subdivision in scoring offense (48.2 points) and total offense (589 yards) and second in passing offense (372 yards).

Evaluating Babers is only half the task. Figuring out how UH might make it work financially would be the more challenging exercise.

Babers currently has a $400,000 base salary and will ring up a good haul on bonuses, too.

More complicated is whether Illinois, Maryland or somebody else might make him an offer and, even if they don’t, whether UH could work around a $300,000 buyout provision in his Bowling Green contract that kicks in Dec. 1.

Of course, ADs worth their courtesy cars have been known to get creative. For example, Babers had a $173,000 buy-out clause at Eastern Illinois, but the day after he signed with Bowling Green, EIU suddenly had an $85,000 deal to play the Falcons in basketball.

The late UH AD Stan Sheriff used to say, “Some people think they can be a better (football) coach, but everybody thinks they can be an AD.”

Well, here’s your shot.

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