It is altogether fitting that the University of Hawai'i and Cincinnati will bring down the curtain with the last regular season game of the college football calendar Saturday night.

For here are two teams that deserve their own stage if for no other reason than to fully explain themselves and their curious approach to football on national TV.

By all rules of the game — at least the ones they teach at coaching seminars — UH and UC should be languishing at the bottom of their conferences, not going to bowls.

Their head coaches should be bemoaning injuries and pointing the finger at the QB position as an excuse for poor seasons, not preparing to cash hefty bonus checks because of them.

Yet here is Cincinnati, BCS bound and No. 13 ranked at 10-2, while UH is 7-5 and headed for the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl, proving that necessity is not only the mother of invention but an avenue to the postseason.

Between them they have used 10 quarterbacks — six of them starters — this season. This in a sport where we are reminded that you need to have just one starter at the position. That, like in the kitchen, where many cooks are said to spoil the broth, too many quarterbacks tend to cause too many headaches.

Tell that to Fresno State and West Virginia. Once highly ranked teams with "name" quarterbacks — singular — who fell to UH and UC, respectively.

Kind of amazing nobody ever thought of this path to success before.

Folks hereabouts are familiar with the circuitous saga of the Warriors, who lost Colt Brennan and expected Tyler Graunke to be the air apparent but instead ended up starting the season with a merry-go-round. Graunke, Inoke Funaki and Greg Alexander all started games and Brent Rausch played before Alexander, seven games on the bench separating two of his starts, nailed down the job. Jake Santos has also played.

Then, there is the believe-it-or-not tale of Cincinnati, which was picked to finish fifth in the Big East even before its QB quandary. The Bearcats' starter was thought to be Ben Mauck before the NCAA denied an eligibility appeal. Dustin Grutza suffered a broken leg in the third game. Tony Pike suffered a broken left (non-throwing) hand two weeks later. Chazz Anderson filled in until Pike, who had been sparingly used before this season, could come back and play in a cast. Along the way two others also played, five in all.

Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly has famously deadpanned, "I'm really just doing it to set the record."

Yup. This is something the rest of the nation has to see, even if only to believe it.

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