WARRIOR FOOTBALL
Warriors settle on 12
Hawaii athletic director Frazier expects more criticism for not filling out the football schedule
The long saga of Hawaii's incomplete football schedule finally ended yesterday. But athletic director Herman Frazier knows the public flogging will continue.
"Criticism will always be there," Frazier said yesterday, after announcing that the Warriors will play 12 games this fall. "I just hope people will understand we kept plugging away to the end. Conceivably, we could keep trying, but we don't want to spin our wheels."
Frazier finally let it go yesterday. He, along with Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson and ESPN, were attempting to fill the Warriors schedule with a game at Aloha Stadium on Oct. 20.
"After a long and exhaustive process that included discussions with several schools, no team we targeted for a 13th game would agree to play at UH in 2007," Frazier said.
He declined to name the potential opponents, saying the recent talks might lead to future dates.
There was some good news yesterday. Frazier said the contract for the Warriors' home game against Washington on Dec. 1 is signed and was received by UH this week. If the Huskies had balked for some reason, it would've been a real disaster. As it stands, Hawaii's 12-game slate includes two I-AA opponents; that makes a schedule inherently weak with WAC bottom feeders look even worse.
The flip side is that the Warriors -- coming off an 11-3 year and likely to be ranked going into the season -- have a better chance of going undefeated with 12 games. No games on Oct. 20 and Nov. 3 give UH chances to regroup and lick wounds before a season-ending gauntlet of encounters with Fresno State, Nevada (on the road), Boise State and Washington.
"It's not the end of the world that we don't have 13 games," Frazier said. "We have some strategic byes that can help the team."