Posted on: Wednesday, May 18, 2005

UH football in middle of pack in new-look WAC

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

A lot of people think a rebuilding University of Hawai'i football team will find itself smack-dab in the thick of a Western Athletic Conference race this season.

The race for third place, apparently.

If you didn't know there was such a derby, well, welcome to the new, increasingly stratified WAC. The perception going in of a widening caste system is reaffirmed by the early read of preseason football magazines that, as they hit the news racks in coming weeks, will note two distinct conference battles shaping up this year: The one for the championship — and the one for a consolation title.

"Call it a case of the Big Two and the Seven Dwarfs," Athlon Sports declares. The Sporting News College Football annual says: "The three-team race that highlighted the last three seasons has become a two-team race."

And even now, still more than three months before the Warriors' Sept. 3 season opener against Southern California, there is no doubt who the "two" are. It will be a shakeup of Richter Scale magnitude if anybody other than Boise State and Fresno State turns out to be one of those two teams. Both finished 2004 in the Top 25 polls and, with plentiful starters returning, each figure to start '05 there as well.

"The rest of the league will be hard-pressed to keep pace," Lindy's College Football predicts. That's a challenge of depth UH understands better than most. After lopsided losses to both Boise State and Fresno State last year, UH is staring at an overhaul of 13 starting positions, including all the so-called "skill" spots, and half the defense.

Five magazines have pegged the Warriors between third place (Phil Steele's College Football Preview) and sixth (Street & Smith's College Football), a range that is about right considering the scale of the rebuilding being undertaken and the number of questions still hanging over the project.

But the league that UH slumped to a fifth-place finish in last year will have changed considerably by the time the ball is in the air this fall. While the top hasn't been altered, the rank and file sure has. The question is: How much and what will it mean for the Warriors?

Even in a revolving door conference these changes are considerable. Gone are two of the Warriors' tormentors, Texas-El Paso and Rice, plus Southern Methodist and Tulsa, who join Conference USA. Only UTEP, which UH has had a strong quarter-century relationship with, will be missed.

In their place come Idaho, New Mexico State and Utah State, all opponents the Warriors should be favored against. That's if they emerge from games with USC and Michigan State without a debilitating injury list.

Not that UH will lack for challenges from the rest of the field, especially when it hits the road. The Warriors have yet to win at Nevada. They will have their work cut out for them in Ruston, La., against Louisiana Tech and will encounter what could be the conference's most improved team when they play Dick Tomey's Spartans at San Jose State.

While a run at the WAC championship figures to be beyond the Warriors this year, they will not be without week-in and week-out scraps.

Not when, as Athlon sees it, "the real battle in the WAC this year figures to be for third place."

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