When the University of Hawai'i gets around to announcing its 2009 football season opener any day now, don't expect a big production.

No brass bands or fireworks for this one.

Not when the opponent is — and we'll pass on a drum roll here — Central Arkansas. Yes, those Bears.

For UH, it is a necessary game, just not one you want to brag about.

When you are the new athletic director at a school where your predecessor received enduring criticism for an inability to complete his 2007 schedule, your marching orders are pretty clear: Fill the damn schedule, pronto.

And, when you have a new head football coach whose first season has the Warriors playing at two Bowl Championship Series schools (Florida and Oregon State) in two of the first three weeks, it is probably best not to repeat that feature the next year.

The Central Arkansas game on Sept. 4, 2009 does both of those things. It gives UH the maximum 13 games and it keeps from compounding a stretch in which UH already plays back-to-back road games at Washington State (Sept. 12) and Nevada-Las Vegas (Sept. 19) before heading into conference. Moreover, playing on a Friday on Labor Day weekend against an NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) opponent provides a tuneup and an additional day of preparation for the double-whammy road trip.

Of course, what it doesn't do is give the new AD the big bang scheduling announcement he'd dearly like to have. A signature signing that, right off the bat, separates him from his much-ridiculed predecessor.

Ideally, the 2009 opener would have taken care of that. It would have made a splash to have plugged in a brand name team from the Pac-10, for example.

But at this late date there wasn't much chance of that happening and we know what procrastination meant while waiting around for a diamond to fall into UH's lap in 2007. By the way, just wondering, but where is that 2008-09 basketball schedule?

The reason there was a 10th-hour opening for football next year is that Navy, which had occupied the Sept. 5 slot, got an offer it couldn't refuse — $1.4 million from Ohio State to go to Columbus, Ohio that date. Faced with losing Navy altogether, UH reluctantly agreed to move Navy into a Nov. 21 opening.

With a non-conference lineup that already includes Wisconsin, Washington State, UNLV and Navy and no other FCS opponents for 2009, UH had both the need and an opening for a twinkie in the opener.

Now that it is out of the way, the hope is that athletic director Jim Donovan can now set his sights on booking some marquee opponents for the openings in 2010 (two) and beyond. The kind that are worthy of brass bands and fireworks.

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