Warriors must visit Wyoming, but avoid Boise State

The University of Hawaii will return to college football’s highest elevation, 7,200-foot Laramie, Wyo., for the first time in 17 years but will skip Boise State, New Mexico and Air Force in the revised 2013 Mountain West Conference schedule.

"Quite frankly, it is a better schedule for us as an institution," said UH athletic director Ben Jay, who also confirmed the Warriors will not play the maximum 13 games this season. "It gives Norm (Chow) a better chance."

Originally, the Mountain West rotation called for UH to play at Boise State, New Mexico, Nevada and Nevada-Las Vegas this year and skip Wyoming.

But with Utah State and San Jose State joining the conference and San Diego State and Boise State not moving to the Big East, the schedule was twice re-drawn to accommodate a 12-team, two-division league.

Hawaii will host West Division opponents Fresno State, San Diego State and San Jose State, plus Colorado State from the Mountain Division. It will travel to West opponents Nevada and Nevada-Las Vegas, plus Mountain foes Utah State and Wyoming.

The dates will be announced later, the conference said.

In the four-year cycle UH rotates Mountain Division opponents every two years but retains West Division foes annually.

UH has not played at Wyoming, a former Western Athletic Conference opponent, since a 66-0 loss in 1996. UH is 3-5 at Laramie, where a sign on Memorial Stadium bids visiting teams, "Welcome to 7,200 feet."

But the Warriors will skip Boise, where they are 0-5, and not play option teams New Mexico and Air Force.

Had UH played Air Force, it would have faced all three participants in the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy series — Army, Navy and Air Force — in the same season.

UH’s nonconference opponents this season are Southern California, Oregon State, Army and Navy.

Chow said, "It is going to be tough sledding no matter who we play in the conference. The Mountain West is extremely challenging."

When UH and Brigham Young announced cancellation of their 2013 and ’14 games last month, it left the Warriors with an opening for an NCAA-maximum 13th regular season game this season. But Jay said, "We’ll stay at 12 games."

Jay said, "There’s two ways to go about this: you either schedule (a Football Championship Subdivision) team or take a guarantee game, flying somewhere for the money. And I don’t like either one of those. I’m not one of those who likes doing these things for the money. We need to address our financial issues in a different manner."