It has long been the hope — if not a fervent wish — of a lot of University of Hawaii football fans to see the Rainbow Warriors, someday, play a bowl game in Las Vegas.

As far back as 1992, when the ’Bows played their first mainland bowl game at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego while the Las Vegas Bowl was debuting in the desert, fans envisioned a postseason game in the Ninth Island as an ideal way to combine a few of our state’s favorite pastimes at a time of the year when a lot of people can take vacation.

If that is still going to happen it looks like it will have to be this year. It may well be 2019 — or bust — given the changes headed to the bowl landscape.

After 28 years it appears the Las Vegas Bowl is movin’ on up and will forsake its long-time matchups of the Mountain West Conference champion in favor of pairing a Pac-12 team against a revolving opponent from the Big Ten or Southeastern Conference when the Raiders’ $2 billion facility opens in 2020, the news website Stadium reported.

It is among the most significant changes that are pending for the expanding (Myrtle Beach Bowl, anyone?) bowl industry beginning in 2020, when the new six-year contract cycle begins. One of which, according to Stadium, would have the planned inaugural Los Angeles Bowl, played at the Rams’ new $5 billion stadium in Inglewood, replace Las Vegas as the destination for the first pick of MWC representatives that Vegas currently enjoys.

Where exactly the Hawaii Bowl fits into the realigned 2020 and beyond bowl picture remains to be seen when the dust settles in May. But the Hawaii Bowl’s owner and operator, ESPN Events, whose representative was in town Tuesday to meet with stakeholders, has said it will seek a six-year extension with Aloha Stadium and its other partners.

But while the Hawaii Bowl may gain more flexibility in its choice of opponents from Conference USA and the American Conference, ESPN Events also aims to hold open a place for UH in years when the ’Bows are bowl eligible and not headed elsewhere as league champion.

Last year that pledge took on more drama than ever before in the wake of an MWC scramble to place six bowl-eligible teams in the five available slots.

Wyoming was the odd man out in this game of musical bowls, the first bowl-eligible team from the conference to be turned away from the postseason in five years. But not before San Diego State athletic director John David Wicker ignited the conflagration by publicly campaigning for the Aztecs to replace UH in the Hawaii Bowl, if they beat the ’Bows in the regular-season finale.

In the end UH prevailed, winning the game in overtime, and a relatively new MWC policy on determining bowl priority was not put to the test at the ’Bows’ expense.

That policy is also expected to be a topic of conversation when MWC members convene in May.

Meanwhile, 2019 provides what figures to be the last shot at a December postseason in Las Vegas for UH.

Of course, with the Pac-12-stuffed non-conference lineup that features games with Arizona, Oregon State and at Washington, the ’Bows might be thrilled to be bowl eligible for a second consecutive season and just secure a place in the postseason.

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