If Louisiana Tech football coach Sonny Dykes had his choice, the Bulldogs would be playing Hawaii Saturday in an afternoon football game, instead of the evening.

Kickoff for their Western Athletic Conference opener is 6 p.m. in Ruston, La. (1 p.m. Hawaii time.)

Asked if he would prefer, for example, a 1 p.m. Central time kickoff, Dykes told a campus press conference, “Exactly, because one in the afternoon (in Louisiana) is eight in the morning for them, so yeah, I would have liked to have played it then just because we were playing at 3 a.m. last year our time.”

The 2010 meeting at Aloha Stadium kicked off at 5:30 p.m. Hawaii time and finished at 2:08 a.m. Central time. UH won the game, 41-21.

Dykes acknowledged the 4,035-mile trip to Ruston “is tough” for UH. “I think they come over a little bit earlier,” Dykes said. “They come over on Wednesday, typically, which gives them a little bit more time to get adjusted.”

“I think (UH coach) Greg McMackin knows this is a big game,” he said. “Their guys will play hard. They will be ready to play. They will play with the same intensity and speed that they play with at home here on the road and they haven’t always done that, but they will on Saturday.’

The Bulldogs (1-3) are a 3—3-1/2-point favorite over UH on Las Vegas betting lines.