Payback time for Warriors

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

Like the Sopranos, the University of Hawai'i football team is a family with a few, uh, scores to settle.

The one at the top of its list this week is: 45-27.

That would be the measure of their embarrassment in a loss at Fresno State last year.

Not the most lopsided, perhaps, yet nevertheless among the most galling in a 3-9 campaign for the way the Warriors say they were ridiculed by Bulldog fans.

"One by one we've been settling our scores from last year," said Manly Kanoa III, the Warriors' starting left guard. "First there was UTEP, then Tulsa and, now . . ."

When the Warriors gathered in their Skelly Stadium locker room, reveling in Saturday's 36-15 win at Tulsa, there was no need to remind anyone whom the schedule was serving up next in this stretch of four consecutive payback games — UTEP, Tulsa, Fresno State and San Jose State — that will say a lot about how this season goes.

"We all knew," said linebacker Joe Correia. "And we knew in how many days."

Truth be told, Fresno State was always at the top of the pay-back list. "It has always been in the back of our minds,"# Kanoa said, choosing his words with care so not as to have them end up on a San Joaquin Valley bulletin board. "We just tried to take care of our other business first and not look past anybody to the Fresno game, but it was definitely there on our minds."

It matters little to the Warriors that Fresno State is no longer undefeated nor a Top 10 team.

Bowl Championship Series or not, "It is still Fresno, a team with good players and a good program," Kanoa said. "There's still something about playing those guys that makes it an important game."

Much as they might have delighted in having the opportunity to be the first team to pin a loss on college football's# Cinderfellas or the chance to do it in front of ESPN and the nation, what matters most is that the Bulldogs are coming — back to Aloha Stadium and back to a stage that recalls their stadium-rattling double-overtime Western Athletic Conference championship showdown of 1999.

Seven-and-oh or 6-1, the way it now stands after Boise State took down Fresno State, it hardly makes any difference to these Warriors what the record is as long as they are the Bulldogs.

Amid the changing faces in the Western Athletic Conference lineup that now takes in Boise State, Louisiana Tech and who knows who else, the Bulldogs are one constant the Warriors can point to.

Fresno State is a team that wears blue and red but UH only sees red when they meet.