By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

The oddsmakers suggest the Florida Atlantic football team, as much as a 21 1/2-point underdog on some Las Vegas lines yesterday, will become another tombstone in the University of Hawai'i's growing graveyard of lower-division victims tonight.

We prefer to think of the Owls more in terms of potential as a historical milestone.

As in possibly the final Division I-AA team to visit Aloha Stadium. Or, at least what should be the last one — unless UH-West O'ahu starts a football program.

Let the Warriors open with a bang tonight against FAU and then be done with lower division opponents, for whom they are 18-1 since 1976, for good.

Nowhere on the next two schedules the Warriors have posted on their Web site are there any more I-AA teams listed. And, with the Warriors poised to raise their profile, hopefully, that is the way it will stay.

Starting the sixth season under head coach June Jones, the Warriors have reached a point in their growth where they should confine themselves to the I-A realm because there is little to be gained and much to risk playing anybody else. The Michigan States, Wisconsins, Purdues etc. that so far dot the 2005 slate and beginning of the '06 schedule are the kind of schools that make sense outside of conference.

Say what you will about Evan Dobelle, the deposed UH president, on other matters but he had it dead, solid right on football scheduling last year when he said, "We can't play I-AA teams anymore. Maybe Florida State can afford to play I-AA teams, but they have Top 25 teams for the rest of their schedule."

For sure, the latest round of Western Athletic Conference expansion that brings in Idaho, New Mexico State and Utah State doesn't portend many Top 25 teams on the horizon.

Indeed, a I-A team with Top 25 aspirations should work over a I-AA team and woe be to the few that struggle. Heaven help any that actually lose. Recall the pall that descended over the Warriors after their season-opening loss to Portland State in 2000 and how it lingered in the 3-9 finish?

With the stage set for quarterback Tim Chang's final lap in pursuit of Ty Detmer's NCAA career passing yardage, ideally the Warriors would have opened this season with a Bowl Championship conference team, somebody with marquee value but rebuilding.

Like the Texas A&M team that Utah roughed up on TV Thursday night. Think of the opening statement it would have made for Chang and the Warriors to put up 500 yards and four touchdowns on somebody like that.

Alas, such fortuitous scheduling is not always possible and we're told that after a cancellation by Sacramento State last fall securing FAU tonight was the best available solution to a bad situation.

The best thing the Warriors can do now is dispatch FAU with enthusiasm tonight and, then forever close the book on lower division opponents.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.