UH still waiting on Hawai'i Bowl foe
| • | Ferd Lewis: Boo birds should stay home |
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer
Officials promise that the University of Hawai'i football team will have an opponent in the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl — sometime before the Christmas Day kickoff.
But as of yesterday, it is still anybody's guess who it will be. Or, how soon one will be announced.
While Louisville (9-3) is the expected — and preferred — choice of many to play UH (8-4), the issue remains in the hands of Conference USA, which must approve the pairings.
An announcement now might not come before Wednesday. The hangup, according to people involved in discussions, is that until the GMAC Bowl (Mobile, Ala.) matchup is completed, the whole lineup is up in the air.
The Hawai'i Bowl has the third choice of the five bowls with C-USA ties. The Liberty Bowl, with the first pick, must take outright champion Southern Mississippi (8-3). But the GMAC, which has the second choice, has invited Texas Christian (10-1), which has so far refused to accept.
Because the GMAC Bowl is played on Dec. 18, which the school says conflicts with Dec. 15-19 final exams, TCU says it would prefer to play in the Hawai'i Bowl on Dec. 25th or in the hometown inaugural Fort Worth Bowl on Dec. 23.
The Horned Frogs have twice played in Mobile, each time after exams were completed.
Meanwhile, the Hawai'i Bowl, the New Orleans Bowl and Fort Worth Bowl are all on hold as are UH and C-USA members Louisville, Memphis (8-3) and Houston (6-5).
"The only one I know for sure we aren't going to get is Southern Miss," said Pete Derzis of ESPN Regional Television, which operates the Hawai'i Bowl.
In other news, the Western Athletic Conference is attempting to place either Boise State (10-1) or Tulsa (8-4) outside of its remaining open bowls — the Silicon Valley and Humanitarian — so that it can also find a place for Fresno State (7-5).
The top two teams in the conference standings are guaranteed bowls by the WAC, which would put Boise State in the hometown Humanitarian Bowl and Tulsa, by virtue of its win over UH, in the Silicon Valley Bowl ahead of Fresno State.
Because Tulsa beat UH and Fresno State lost to the Warriors, Tulsa wins the second-place tie-breaker.
• USC fans rejoicing: Next to fans in Hawai'i, the second-happiest viewers of the University of Hawai'i's 37-29 victory over Alabama in the national cable game Saturday were in Southern California.
The reason: USC stands to pick up from 0.25th to 0.40th of a point, depending upon estimates, on the strength of schedule component when the Bowl Championship Series standings are announced today.
That's a small but hardly insignificant number in the computer battle to decide who plays unbeaten Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl.
Although USC is second in the BCS standings to Oklahoma, people involved in the process have said that third-place LSU might be able to overtake the Trojans in the final week, depending upon how things unfold.
This week, LSU plays Georgia in the SEC Championship game while USC plays Oregon State.
As such, the UH-Alabama game took on added import because it involved a head-to-head matchup, once removed. USC beat UH, 61-32, and LSU beat Alabama, 27-3.
• UH punter pins Tide: Alabama's average field position in Saturday's game on its own 21-yard line underlined the role of UH punter Kurt Milne and the special teams.
"Kurt did a great job," coach June Jones said. "Our punt coverage was the difference in that game, too. I mean, (where) they started field position after punts was incredible."
Milne averaged 42.5 yards per punt on eight tries. On 13 of its 18 possessions, the Crimson Tide began at or inside its 20-yard line.
"To think we didn't get any work last week (UH wasn't forced to punt against Army) the whole time and they showed up and played like that," Jones said.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
