Do Portland State and Florida Atlantic ring a bell?

Actually they rung a lot more than that with upsets of the University of Hawai'i football team that reverberated through the 2000 and 2004 seasons.

Both NCAA Division I-AA teams, now know as Football Championship Subdivision teams. Both lightly regarded if they were taken seriously at all. Both appearing early on the schedule in UH rebuilding years.

And, of course, both victorious.

So, one of the best things the Warriors can have going for them tonight against Weber State at Aloha Stadium is a sense of history. That and consistent quarterback play.

Ordinarily you'd hardly think the Warriors would need one more edge against an FCS team. Big Sky, big deal, right?

But coming off the blowout at Florida and prior to the appearance at Oregon State next week, this game has trapdoor potential, if the Warriors let it.

And, that's the key: It will be the kind of a game the Warriors make of it.

It can be a welcome home runaway if the Warriors are so inspired or join Portland State and Florida Atlantic in the red-faced UH Hall of Embarrassment if the Warriors aren't.

Wildcats or Mildcats? Frankly, that's more up to the Warriors than it is Weber State.

UH has a bigger budget, more scholarships and more coaches, reflecting the differences between FBS and FCS levels.

But the will, the appetite to do unto Weber State what the Gators did to the Warriors last week in Gainesville is where this game turns.

For Weber State, under former Utah coach Ron McBride, this can make a season. For UH it can be the start of something or the unraveling of even more.

Never mind that the Wildcats are 3-38 against FBS teams in 47 years.

With 10 players and an assistant coach from Hawai'i, you can bet Weber State will give UH its best shot. Hawai'i has always gotten that from McBride teams. As Wildcats' quarterback Cameron Higgins, who was passed over by UH out of Saint Louis School told the Salt Lake Tribune, "there's some kind of bitterness there."

When then-athletic director Herman Frazier scheduled this game last year the idea, he said, was to give UH a tune-up between the opener at Florida and the Sept. 13 road test at Oregon State.

The soft, creame-filled middle of the opening month sandwich, so to speak.

And it can be all that, a confidence and momentum builder, if that is the way the Warriors treat it.

Of all the games on this beyond challenging Warriors' schedule, this is the game in which UH has the most say in how it goes.

What they do with that luxury will also say a lot about them.

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