No standard-size Division I college football stadium.
No fans in the stands.
No ticket revenue.
No wins yet in three games against FBS opponents.
The status of University of Hawaii football makes me think of those signs at parks that tell you all the things you can’t do — and at the bottom:
HAVE FUN!
Fun is in the shortest supply it’s ever been around Manoa. Usually, there’s enough to offset the crisis mode UH sports always seems to be in.
Even during the good times, fans fret about something bad coming right around the corner. As usual, the angst now involves money and politics — aggravated exponentially by COVID-19 and the government-mandated ban on spectators, which was extended Monday. And it’s affecting all college sports in Hawaii, not just UH football.
There’s always hope, though, and if the worst of the pandemic really is behind us (for the third time, but who’s counting?), a couple of those negatives can be scratched off the sign.
Even if everything gets repaired, though, it might not be long before another big “No” comes along.
No conference for football.
This is especially poor timing for bad optics at UH. With the SEC raiding the Big 12 leading to the Big 12 raiding others, the latest round of conference realignment is upon us. History shows this is an exercise that proves gravity exists and the you-know-what always rolls downhill.
Hawaii is a member of the Mountain West for football only and forced to pay the other conference teams subsidies for their travel here. It’s extortion, but there weren’t many options when the Western Athletic Conference fell apart 10 years ago.
It’s way too early to know what the Mountain West will look like when this latest round of musical conferences ends. But it’s not hard to imagine Hawaii without a chair.
It’s called leverage, and UH never has it, largely because of geography. There’s even less now with a stadium that seats just 9,000 people. And even less than that with those 9,000 seats empty.
This hurts in ways beyond revenue when even the Warriors’ family and friends aren’t allowed at the games (morale, recruiting). It’s also embarrassing and annoying for the rest of the conference (visiting team families often plan trips to Hawaii around their kids’ games).
The endless stadium drama was a bad joke even before the pandemic.
If you look at this from the perspective of the Mountain West, what reasons are there not to dump Hawaii? The two I can think of are the rule that lets UH and teams on its schedule start the season a week ahead of others, thus benefiting from playing 13 regular-season games instead of 12. The other is the Hawaii Bowl affiliation.
There’s always talk from some corners about going down to a lower level; that, however, would create an even more untenable fiscal situation. Plus there’s a prestige loss unbearable for many fans, while people who consider downsizing UH sports as a real option tend to be those who would merely shrug if they didn’t exist at all.
The other, more viable option, is going independent for football (UH’s other sports seem to be secure in the Big West). It wouldn’t be easy, but it should be explored.
Independence worked for UH’s first seven decades of football, which included the program’s two biggest road wins, at Nebraska in 1955 and Washington in ’73.
Of course, things are much different now, and UH gets a first-hand look at a current independent Saturday when it plays at New Mexico State (1-3). They play again, here, on Oct. 23. That’s an example of how hard it can be to schedule games when you’re not in a conference.
Unlike conference members, independents book all of their own games. If independent, it would be difficult for UH to convince any team other than another indie to play here in October or November, when conference teams are playing each other.
The Week Zero exemption would help, but playing other independents twice a season might still be a necessity.
It’s not all horrible. Notre Dame and BYU are ranked 12th and 15th in the current Associated Press Top 25 poll; Liberty and Army are among those also receiving votes. They’re all 3-0.
Because of Notre Dame’s status, a deserving independent team has more realistic access to the College Football Playoff than one from the Mountain West or the other Group of Five conferences, at least in the CFP’s current four-team format.
The Warriors have plenty to address before daring to even dream that big again; resolving the stadium issue would be a good start.
But if it ever does get to the point of no conference for UH football, it doesn’t necessarily mean no UH football.
