They've been known to serve a mean crawfish etoufee at Ponchatoulas restaurant, but an appetite for the Wednesday night special isn't what will put the University of Hawai'i football team on a plane toward Ruston, La. today.

Nor is it the five pounds of boiled crawfish meal deal for $14.95.

Rather, the first midweek game in UH history is an ESPN-arranged, made-for-cable matchup of the Warriors and Louisiana Tech.

When you are the two most widely dispersed teams in college football's most far-flung conference, you do what you can to get your name and face out there. You grin and bear the inconveniences, even if it entails playing on a Wednesday night and one of you is being sent 4,000 miles from home to do it.

It is, at once, a game of manifold sacrifices and opportunity, not to mention an indication of the lengths that non-marquee schools must go to remain visible and competitive.

In this case, both UH and Tech will disrupt their routines and class schedules to help the WAC fulfill its contractual obligations to provide ESPN with, at minimum, two midweek (Tuesday or Wednesday) night games per season.

UH will travel five time zones and Tech will give up the prospect of a more lucrative Saturday night date. Though, as home team, Tech will earn a $75,000 so-called "inconvenience fee" for its trouble.

Their reward will be the opportunity to reap the benefits from being the only football game that night and grab a pre-MLB playoffs window. Theirs will be a prominent stage on which to promote their programs and appeal to prospective recruits across the million or two households expected to tune in.

And, for the most part, they will be glad to do it because their names aren't Florida, USC or Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish can almost choose when they want to play and be paid handsomely for it. UH, Tech and most non-BCS teams, not so much.

Fact is the WAC will realize only about $1 million, total, from the dozen or more games it participates in this year under the final year of the current ESPN contract.

But while UH, Tech and the WAC would welcome more lucrative paydays, what they absolutely require is exposure and the validation that comes with an appearance on ESPN2. Getting the ESPN Game Day crew — Lou Holtz, Rece Davis and Mark May — that works this game to talk about them for three hours — and hopefully having a performance worthy of praise — is advertising and authentication UH couldn't buy.

And, then, there's also the Wednesday special at Ponchatoulas.