The University of Hawai'i football team finds itself at a crossroads tonight and we don't just mean the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Salt Lake Blvd.

This one, a 5:05 p.m. meeting with Fresno State, increasingly looks like one of those games that the fortunes of a season can turn on. For better — or worse.

Win and the 2-2 (0-1 WAC) Warriors can continue to entertain thoughts of a winning season and a Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl appearance, their two major remaining goals.

Lose, making it three consecutive setbacks and, well, maybe it is time to start planning the table settings for that end-of-the-season banquet.

So if this one has something of a last stand feel to it, there is a reason. We need look no further than the last UH-FSU meeting to see how the tectonic plates of a season can shift on one game. The Warriors were 1-3 when they went into Fresno a 22-point underdog last October, down and all but out after taking lickings from Florida, Oregon State and San Jose State and getting past Weber State.

But with their backs to the Sierra Nevadas, the Warriors pulled out a 32-29 overtime victory over the then-22nd ranked Bulldogs. Energized by the school's first upset of a nationally ranked opponent on the road, the Warriors went on to a second-place WAC finish and bowl appearance.

Of course, in the San Joaquin Valley it will be recalled as quite the opposite: a stunner that sent the Bulldogs, who had been thinking BCS, careening to a fifth-place WAC finish.

A year later, Fresno State arrives at 1-3 (0-1 WAC) looking for its turnaround, having come up short against three nationally ranked opponents, Wisconsin, Boise State and Cincinnati.

Because of the closeness with which the Bulldogs have played those teams — and the way UH came apart in a 27-6 loss at Louisiana Tech — the Warriors are double-digit underdogs at home for one of the rare times against a WAC opponent.

The Warriors had 4,000 miles of a return trip over which to soul search. Not to mention the 10 days that comprise their last open date in which to go about making repairs.

The Warriors have more than just the Bulldogs tonight, chances are they also have their season before them.