Here it is more than two months before the start of the football season and despite being ranked as high as No. 8 in the preseason polls, the University of Central Arkansas knows that even with another 10-2 — or better — finish it won't be conference champion or play in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly I-AA) playoffs.

But the Bears will be coming to Hawai'i.

To head coach Clint Conque, who engineered the trip, that means plenty.

To the 16 returning starters and 48 returning lettermen who have, practically to a man, been sweating through unsupervised workouts in the Arkansas humidity, the Sept. 4 season opener has been something to rally around.

A lot of non-conference teams that find their way onto the Warriors' schedule like to bill the trip as their pre — or post — season "bowl game." For example, Alabama was on NCAA probation when it booked Hawai'i trips for 2002 and '03 to soothe the denial of bowl opportunities. Something Conque took note of at the time and said inspired him to seek a game here, too.

The Bears' problem, however, hasn't been probation. It is that they have been much too good too soon.

When UCA moved from Division II to I-AA, beginning an NCAA-mandated four-year "transitioning" process in 2006, few imagined the Bears would be in a position to win conference titles or of a Top 20 caliber in the interim.

Ramping up from 36 scholarships to 63 and diving into a higher level of competition was supposed to require time and involve considerable growing pains for the school located in Conway, Ark., 30 miles north of Little Rock. It didn't.

The Bears went 8-3 (2006), 6-5 (2007) and 10-2 (2008). If they had won their final game of the 2007 season they'd have been co-champs of the Southland Conference in their first season of play. In 2008 they did finish first in the standings (6-1) and 12th in the final national poll.

But since this had never happened before with a "transitioning" team in an automatic qualifying conference, the NCAA was befuddled. Eventually, late into the 2008 season and just before two big games, it ruled that the Bears not only couldn't represent the Southland Conference in the playoffs but could not be declared "champions" lest the conference lose its automatic berth.

The Bears fully understood going in they were not eligible for the playoffs but were disappointed they would not have a chance to at least be officially recognized as "champions" for on-the-field accomplishments.

This amid a season of the tragedy of a campus shooting and turmoil beyond athletics.

To lessen the sting of the NCAA's decision, UCA presented its players rings with "No. 1" designation and conference logo. It gave out T-shirts paying tribute to the championship and came up with a banner and football office rug to herald the accomplishment. Not all of which went over well in officialdom.

A reward — and carrot — not likely to ruffle official feathers is the trip to Hawai'i, which Conque will tell you his players have earned in ways he hardly imagined when it booked the game 11 months ago.

"To go through what we went through and still have the season we had means you have some special cats — high-character guys that are about the team and love of the game," Conque said. "And, we have a bunch."