StarBulletin.com

WAC teams await football schedule's completion


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POSTED: Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Hawaii football team knows who and where it'll play this fall.

It's the when that remains in question for the Warriors' conference games.

The Western Athletic Conference is still working on the league's schedule and commissioner Karl Benson said last week he hoped it would be completed by the end of March.

In the meantime, the schools are in a holding pattern in finalizing their plans for the season.

“;They told us that we should have it by the end of the month. That would still work for us,”; UH athletic director Jim Donovan said. “;Most ADs are chomping at the bit to get it so we can make sure we can get our travel arrangements all done and get the travel packages out there for our fans and all those kinds of things.

“;Even though it is later than usual, it is workable for us.”;

The league is working with ESPN on its television package and having one less weekend than usual to fit the schedule has complicated the process this year.

Donovan said the Warriors could make three appearances on national or regional television, although “;that's not set in stone.”;

Donovan has also expressed to the WAC the school's preference for a home game or a bye the weekend of Sept. 26 following the Warriors' back-to-back road games at Washington State and UNLV.

Hawaii's WAC schedule will include home games against Boise State, Fresno State, New Mexico State and Utah State. The road games will be at Idaho, Louisiana Tech, Nevada and San Jose State.

UH's nonconference schedule consists of home games against Central Arkansas (Sept. 4), Navy (Nov. 28) and Wisconsin (Dec. 5), and road games at Washington State (Sept. 12) and UNLV (Sept. 19).