Alabama at Birmingham (7-4) and Hawai'i (7-5) produced wondrous college football seasons punctuated with invitations to today's Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl at Aloha Stadium.

And that's when the credits should have rolled — with UAB celebrating the end of its streak of bowl snubs, and UH toasting its successful completion of the improbable task of winning the final three regular-season games.

But somebody forgot to yell, "Cut!" and after today's game, only one of the teams gets to keep the dream season.

"It was so joyous," linebacker Zac Woodfin said of the Blazers' first bowl berth. "It was such a feeling of accomplishment. You've worked so long for it. To finally get the goal to come true is an awesome feeling.

"But even though we're happy to be here, we're here to play football. We're here to win a football game. We're not going to come in here, party and go. We're not going to stink the game up. We're going to play hard."

Chad Owens, an All-America slotback, said it is not enough to qualify for the Warriors' fourth bowl in June Jones' six seasons as UH head coach.

"We worked hard to get to this point," he said. "We don't want to be satisfied by just playing in the game. We want to win. We don't want to remember our last game as a loss. If we lose, everything we did to get here won't mean a thing."

Owens echoed Jones' message from a team meeting two weeks ago. "It better sink in," Jones said, "or we'll be living with it the whole offseason."

It appeared UAB's offseason might have started earlier. Defensive line coach Pat Donohoe was arrested Oct. 8 on a marijuana-possession charge during a recruiting trip. He resigned 10 days later.

"We didn't have a (defensive line) coach for two weeks, and unfortunately, we lost those two games," Woodfin said.

Assistant head coach Rick Christophel moved there, and "we got back on track," Woodfin said.

UAB was bowl eligible in 2000 and 2001, but didn't receive a bid.

"This year was a different feeling than a lot of other years," Woodfin said. "There are five bowl games for our conference. We knew we would be one of the top three teams."

The Blazers finished third in Conference USA.

"They're excited to be here," UAB coach Watson Brown said. "You've got to understand, these seniors were with both teams that weren't taken. They've tasted disappointment twice. They're ready."