When Notre Dame was announced as the University of Hawai'i's opponent for the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl, the Warriors rejoiced at the considerable national exposure they would enjoy playing college football's most storied institution.

But, alas, there's a difference between exposure and being exposed as they were acutely — and embarrassingly — made aware yesterday.

While the Fighting Irish were waking the echoes in a 49-21 Christmas Eve romp, the Warriors were reviving big, bold question marks about matching up with some Bowl Championship Series-level competition.

You remember, the ones from their last bowl, the 41-10 Sugar Bowl rout by Georgia, just a week short of a year ago now.

Someone, politely, even asked UH coach Greg McMackin to compare the two.

But, really, no answer was required.

This was worse.

The thumping in the Superdome was at least administered by a top 10 team that could have — and probably should have — been playing for the national championship.

This one was at home, of all places, and inflicted by a 6-6 team that hadn't won a bowl game in an NCAA-record nine previous appearances dating to the 1993 season.

Though against the Warriors last night the Irish looked like a title contender and their quarterback, Jimmy Clausen, seemed every bit the 2009 — or 2010 — Heisman Trophy candidate McMackin grandly proclaimed him to be.

Clausen completed 22 of 26 passes — with two drops — for 401 yards and five touchdowns before the Irish mercifully pulled him — and his all-world receiver, Golden Tate (six catches, 177 yards, three touchdowns) — with 10 minutes, 41 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

Perhaps not since Ben Roethlisberger in 2001 for Miami of Ohio has an opposing quarterback so completely had his way with a befuddled UH secondary.

But, then, rarely has one had the time to operate that Clausen enjoyed.

Time was a luxury UH quarterback Greg Alexander could only dream about as the stars swirled about his helmet amid eight sacks that allowed the Warriors to supplant Notre Dame as the owner of the NCAA record for the most sacks surrendered (59) in a season. In that, this game did look remarkably like the Sugar Bowl in which Colt Brennan was eight times the pinata.

At times last night it seemed like everybody but the Leprechaun was getting in a lick on Alexander as the UH partisans in a gathering of 43,487 groaned in unison. He slung passes sidearm, three-quarters, any way, shape or form to avoid the tsunami-like rush.

Turnovers (two to none by Notre Dame), penalties (eight), breakdowns in the kicking game (a blocked punt and a 96-yard kickoff return for a touchdown) were flashback reminders, this time all rolled into one lowlight night that left a big smudge on a 7-7 season and no small amount of lingering questions.

Too bad, too, because these Warriors grew mightily in rallying from a 1-3 start to get into a bowl at 7-5 through the penultimate game of the regular season. A strong finish in the bowl would have been quite the exclamation point on a winning season.

And this had seemed the place for it. Among the 34 bowls, this one had been pegged by oddsmakers as the closest matchup, a one-point difference separating the two teams on the Las Vegas betting lines.

Instead, it was a blowout that brought back reminders of all the deficiencies that have stood out in the mounting string of disappointing performances against BCS signatory teams. Recall the fourth quarter of the Cincinnati game, the Oregon State pounding, the Florida fiasco and the Sugar Bowl debacle.

Which, for those wondering, is what helped make this one the most painful of all.

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