Who cares what conferences they’re in?

Hawaii and Fresno State need to keep scheduling each other in football.

But after the Warriors’ 21-20, last-minute road victory Saturday, who could blame the Bulldogs if they don’t want any part of UH for a while — especially the Hawaii defense?

Fresno State is among the Mountain West schools chosen for the rebuilding Pac-12, but Saturday’s upset at Fresno was one for anyone who has ever felt left behind — and for all underdogs: the bookmakers had the Bulldogs as 14-point favorites.

The Hawaii defense refused to yield anything in the second half, and receiver Nick Cenacle caught his second TD pass from Brayden Schager with 15 seconds left. We’ll have to ask former UH running back Richard Higa if he can share his “Timex” nickname with Schager, since the UH quarterback also takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.

Special teams did their part, too. If not for Cam Stone’s block of a second-quarter Fresno State PAT they might still be playing.

After this confidence builder, who is to say UH can’t run the table and make it to the Hawaii Bowl? (And, yes, there are rumblings that the Warriors could get the home-team call even if they don’t make it to 7-5.)

Beating UNLV at home, and winning at Utah State, and again on senior night against New Mexico won’t be easy. Then again, nothing is simple for this team.

Now Hawaii is 4-5, and has won two games in a row — two conference games.

This is UH’s first road win since a year back from Monday, at Nevada. And it’s third-year coach Timmy Chang’s second in 14 games away from the islands.

But this isn’t Chang’s first win at Fresno.

In 2002, Chang the quarterback was criticized as much as — or even more than — Chang the coach is now. This was even the case when UH was 5-2 heading into its game at Fresno State … and, for much of his junior and senior years, too, even though all three ended in bowl game appearances.

The Warriors won that game at Fresno 31-21, coming back from a 21-9 deficit after three quarters. I always felt it was one of Chang’s greatest games, and if more Hawaii fans had seen him engineer those fourth-quarter drives they’d have appreciated his body of work more. As for now, there will be fewer cries for him to lose his job, at least for a week.

If you look at some of the stats from Saturday’s win, Hawaii was the better team by more than just one point. For example, the Warriors outgained the Bulldogs, 346 yards to 176.

But that doesn’t include the 89 yards on the pick-6 by Fresno State’s Phoenix Jackson that gave the Bulldogs a 20-7 lead with less than four minutes to go in the third quarter. At the time, it seemed the Warriors had found a way to be even worse in the red zone than they were before last week’s win against Nevada, when UH was superb in pretty much everything that mattered.

But, combined with several other untimely miscues, this seemed like regression. It’s one thing to have to settle for field goals or get stopped on downs near the goal line — it’s another to give up a TD when you’re driving for a go-ahead score.

It was more of the same when Cenacle lost a fumble at the Fresno 22 on what was potentially the game-winning drive with less than two minutes left.

But — as it had throughout the entire second half — the UH defense stymied the Bulldogs yet again, and the Warriors got one more chance, at midfield with 1:30 left.

Fittingly, it was Cenacle who caught the 3-yard pass from Schager to win it.

This wasn’t Schager’s greatest game statistically, but it was one of his grittiest — as it was three years ago, when as a true freshman making his first start, Schager threw two fourth-quarter touchdown passes as UH beat 18th-ranked Fresno State 27-24.

That one was at home — but an empty Ching Complex, because of COVID-19. So, more Hawaii fans probably saw Saturday’s win at Fresno in person, if you don’t count the cardboard cutouts.