Ferd Lewis
Late starts no help to Warriors

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Under the lights in Manoa, the University of Hawai'i last night became the last Western Athletic Conference team to open fall football practice this season.

Where nine teams had already gone before them, the Warriors finally followed, running wind sprints and beginning drills.

It is becoming a familiar if less-than-ideal pattern for the Warriors who, for the second consecutive season, are the last team in the WAC and one of the final among 117 NCAA Division IA teams to put on the pads.

Since the opening of camp is determined by the date of a team's first game and the Warriors have had scheduled openers pulled out from under them each of these two seasons, they find themselves left with another late start.

Last year, Texas canceled out six months in advance of what was to have been a Sept. 2 opener, pushing the Warriors' kickoff to Sept. 9. This time it was Iowa State dropping out seven months short of a Sept. 1 start, leaving the Sept. 8 game with Montana as the opener.

As a result, there is a premium on every day and every practice for the Warriors, who have some catching up to do. Montana, which will arrive on Maui with a game already behind it, opened practice nine days ago.

But what should be of more concern is that when the Warriors open the WAC, every team will have an edge in games played. Consider, for example, that Fresno State will have played six games by the time UH plays three. Texas-El Paso will have played half its schedule by the time it meets UH, which will have played just a third of its 12-game schedule.

How much of a disadvantage this might put UH at remains to be seen as the season plays out. But clearly it is far from an ideal approach.

Cancellations — seven teams have canceled or pushed back games with UH in a four-year period — have become a concern as UH scrambles to find replacements and works around inopportune holes in its schedule.

It has necessarily prompted UH to take a long, detailed look at the way it will schedule in the future. So much so that the Warriors, who have heretofore been largely unwilling to play non-conference games out of the state, have come to realize that it is a luxury they can no longer afford.

UH already is booked for road trips to Southern Cal in 2003 and an as yet unannounced date at Brigham Young.

The result is the days of UH playing eight and nine home games annually are on their way out. But if it allows UH to upgrade its schedule and prevent the awkward late starts, it will have been a good trade.