Sports Watch
EVERYONE'S working to avoid the Y2K bug. Even Hawaii athletic director Hugh Yoshida. Nevada makes Y2K
planning more difficultFor Yoshida, hammering out the Rainbows' football schedule for the year 2000 hasn't been an easy task, even if we're talking about something as immediate as next year.
The addition of Nevada to the Western Athletic Conference has the league's athletic directors working double time to get their football schedules for next season in order. A conference call is planned next Tuesday to discuss the implementation of a long-range scheduling chart.
The Rainbows have five nonconference games in place for 2000, but will have to drop one of them to fit in the Wolf Pack, the WAC's new member.
Two games are definitely set, said Yoshida.
The Rainbows will open the 2000 season on Sept. 2 against the Texas Longhorns, and close it against Wisconsin on Nov. 25.
"We definitely want Texas and Wisconsin on board," Yoshida said.
In between next year's version of Scylla and Charybdis - the Greeks' way of saying between a rock and a hard place - are nonconference games against Louisiana Tech, Arkansas State and Portland State.
With eight conference games to be scheduled, Yoshida will have to drop one of those three - most likely Division I-AA Portland State, coach June Jones' former team.
It won't be a matter of just dropping a team, but rescheduling it for another year.
Air Force, for example, agreed to switch its contracted game with Hawaii in 2000 to the following year in order to accommodate the Rainbows.
YOSHIDA isn't the only WAC athletic director playing catch-up with the scheduling dilemma because of Nevada's addition.
Fresno State has raised some concerns because it has already booked five nonconference opponents in 2002. With the league commitment of eight games, that's one more than the allowable number of games for the season, excluding bowl games.
The Bulldogs are OK for next season, with four nonconference games if they play at Hawaii, which gives them a 12th-game exemption. But the five in 2002 poses a tricky scheduling readjustment. At least one game has to be rescheduled or dropped.
Scheduling Texas and Wisconsin turns out to be good news and bad news for the Rainbows.
The good news?
The Longhorns - UH's 1995 opening opponent - this time won't have Ricky Williams, who began his heralded UT career at Aloha Stadium. Also, the Badgers, who buried the 'Bows to close their 1996 season, will be without Ron Dayne, who tries to break Williams' NCAA rushing numbers in his final season this fall.
The bad news?
BIG-TIME football programs such as Texas and Wisconsin should come up with equally capable replacements.
I'm already worried about the Longhorns, who had the No. 1 recruiting class by landing quarterback Chris Simms and defensive end Cory Redding - USA Today's offensive and defensive players of the year, respectively. Simms is the son of Phil Simms, the former New York Giants' star quarterback.
I'm sure Jones is concerned as well. But he's got more immediate worries - like this year's Big Bookend Teams on the schedule.
His Rainbows open the season against USC and close with Washington State.
Still, that's not as doubly perilous as Texas and Wisconsin. But by then, Jones' Rainbows will have had another year of playing together.