It wasn't much after halftime of Thursday's Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl — the outcome a foregone conclusion by then — when talk swiftly turned to the fortunes of the University of Hawai'i football team.

People in the Western Athletic Conference, Conference USA, the bowl committee, ESPN Regional Television, you name it, were pondering the Warriors' prospects for 2010.

Surprising for a team that wasn't even playing?

Hardly.

Any talk about the health and future of the Hawai'i Bowl begins with UH. The game was created for UH and the Warriors are the ones who command the crowds, as the turnout of 20,217 for Nevada and Southern Methodist on Christmas Eve pointedly reminded.

When the game began in 2002, it was acknowledged that some years UH wouldn't be available either because the Warriors weren't bowl-eligible or because they had qualified for something more lucrative. And, indeed, three of the eight Hawai'i Bowls have had a stand-in for the Warriors, who went to the Sugar Bowl in the 2007 and failed to become bowl-eligible in 2005 and 2009.

Each time UH bounced back strong and so, too, did the crowds. Never has the game's endurance been tested by UH's absence in back-to-back years.

Which is a good thing since the NCAA requires bowls to average a 25,000 turnstile count — or 70 percent of stadium capacity — over a rolling three-year period or risk losing certification.

Thanks to the Hawai'i Bowl record 43,487 that turned out for the 2008 UH-Notre Dame game, the bowl is in good shape this time around despite UH's absence this year. Thanks also to the return of former UH coach June Jones with SMU, for giving the 2009 matchup much more local cachet than it would have had with, say, Southern Mississippi.

Without Jones it could have been more like Nevada's last appearance, when 16,134 showed up for the Wolf Pack's 2005 game against Central Florida.

So, coming off the 6-7 finish of 2009, UH's prospects for 2010 assume a relevance for the Hawai'i Bowl, which agonized over the season-turning 34-33 loss to Nevada-Las Vegas as much as the most hardcore UH fans.

The major college opponents on UH's 2010 schedule had a combined 71-77 record in 2009, so you'd expect the fortunes to be favorable. And the hope, coming off an injury-plagued season, is that things have to be healthier.

You'd like to think that even if, somehow, UH didn't make it next year, the game could still generate the 11,296 turnstile attendance required to meet the 25,000 rolling average. But some things, bowl games among them, are best not left to tempt fate.