In 2001, somewhere between Hawaii quarterback Nick Rolovich’s fifth and eighth touchdown passes of the game, a bolt of inspiration that would alter the college football bowl landscape and UH’s bowl trajectory struck a TV viewer in Charlotte, N.C.

“I was watching the (UH-Brigham Young) game from my couch and it was almost like a light bulb went on and I saw an opportunity,” recalled Pete Derzis.

Derzis was an employee of ESPN Regional Television, and seeing the Rainbow Warriors lambaste previously unbeaten and eighth-ranked BYU, 72-45, while knowing they were about to get left out of the shallow bowl pool despite a 9-3 record got him to thinking about bowl possibilities.

At the time ERT’s parent company, ESPN, owned and operated just one of college football’s 25 existing bowls, the nine-year old Las Vegas Bowl, which it had just purchased.

But seeing UH as an example of deserving teams not served by the market at the time and expansion as an untapped, potential windfall for ESPN, Derzis proposed to his bosses that they add a company-owned and operated bowl at Aloha Stadium.

Now, 18 years later, UH is 9-5 with its own backyard bowl to play in during bowl-eligible seasons, ESPN owns and operates 14 of college football’s 40 bowls, and Derzis is ESPN’s senior vice president, college sports programming and events.

With UH and BYU meeting up in the postseason for the first time in the Dec. 24 Hawaii Bowl, “It is amazing how it has all come full circle,” Derzis said. “How ironic is that?”

Three weeks after that fateful 2001 game, UH athletic department officials, leaders from the Hawaii Tourism Authority, Aloha Stadium, Western Athletic Conference, Conference USA and ESPN gathered in the governor’s office atop the State Capitol to announce the birth of the Hawaii Bowl, which would become a template of sorts for subsequent bowls.

The pieces had been there before, of course, since Hawaii had hosted the once-upon-a-time Aloha and Oahu bowls. But the timing and various entities had to be realigned to fit the changing landscape.

The Aloha Bowl (1982-2000) enjoyed a good run and eventually teamed with the Oahu Bowl (1988-2000) to provide the first bowl doubleheader before changes in ownership and market conditions brought about their transfer and demise.

Head coach June Jones’ revival of UH’s football fortunes gave the Hawaii Bowl an anchor team and local interest to build upon. And the Rainbow Warriors appeared in four of the bowl’s first five games. ESPN’s ownership of the event gave it credibility as well as financial stability.

The backdrop of Hawaii gave the game an appeal that other bowls of mid- and lower-range payouts lacked.

And the bowl emerged at a time when all but the top tier conferences often found themselves frustrated trying to find openings for bowl-eligible but less glamorous teams.

Recalling his “vision” from his couch, Derzis said, “I’d like to tell you there was some grand strategy to all this. But, really, what happened was that this all evolved and we ended up with a model that we felt could really work.”

Eighteen years later the matching of UH and BYU in the postseason suggests that it still is working.

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