When the University of Hawai'i football team walked into Bryant-Denny Stadium for the 2006 season opener at Alabama, it wasn't the players who drew quick attention.

"Some guy in the crowd, who was like 60 years old, said, 'I've never seen a football (coaching) staff that old. It's gotta be the oldest football staff in America,' " assistant coach Rich Miano remembers.

At age 44 that season, Miano remarkably was the youngest member of the 10-man UH full-time staff that averaged 57.6 years. (UH even had a graduate assistant older than Miano). Last year the average was 55.

But when UH kicks off the 2008 season, Miano will be more in the middle. With two vacancies to fill, new head coach Greg McMackin's staff is averaging 47 1/4 years and could get younger.

The addition of 29-year-old Nick Rolovich to coach the quarterbacks, 28-year-old Brian Smith to coach the offensive line and 31-year-old Dave Aranda to coach the defensive line is giving the Warriors a welcome youthful tint it hasn't had for years. The fact that the Warriors are doing it largely by choice and, hopefully, not by tapped-out budget constraints would be a good sign.

Clearly the "geriatric staff" — as some staff members came to jokingly refer to themselves — made that experience pay off with an 11-3 finish in 2006 and record 12-1 showing in 2007.

But the change in head coaches also affords UH an opportunity to rebuild — and reload — its coaching staff for the future. It offers an opening to bring in "younger blood" as assistant coach Ron Lee likes to put it. Not to mention fresh perspectives.

McMackin maintains he's less interested in age than in a blend of other attributes. Beside football knowledge, two of the qualities he said he prizes in looking for new coaches are people he has worked with as players or coaches and those who have a Hawai'i tie.

In that Rolovich and Smith, UH graduates both, make for interesting studies if not prototypes. As former Warriors, they not only possess a knowledge of the offensive system and the place, but have a considerable investment in the program. If there was anybody you'd like to think might stick around a while in this most transitory of occupations, where we're told the average stay is less than four years, it could be guys such as these.

One of the best things the Warriors had going for themselves in the June Jones era was continuity and it showed. Turnover was so minimal as to be the envy of the WAC.

As McMackin rebuilds, youth is being served and so, too, you'd like to think, is the long-term future of UH.

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