There are a lot of reasons the University of Hawaii football team is a prohibitive, and in Las Vegas off-the-board, favorite tonight against Duquesne, but one of the biggest can be summed up in two words: Portland State.

The Vikings, with a stunning 45-20 upset in 2000, were the last Football Championship Subdivision (Division I-A in those days) team to knock off the Rainbow Warriors. As off-the-board underdogs, in fact.

Now, normally this bit of ’Bows trivia would be of mildly passing interest to this year’s team, many of whom weren’t even in preschool at the time.

But be assured it continues to resonate with their head coach Nick Rolovich, whose quivering eardrums got full measure from a sellout crowd as the quarterback that September night at Aloha Stadium.

In his first start at UH, Rolovich completed 28 of 57 passes for 367 yards and two touchdowns against Portland State but was also intercepted twice, overthrew Ashley Lelie twice on apparent touchdown opportunities and missed a wide-open Craig Stutzmann on another.

And the vocal majority among the 45,452 on hand let him know of their displeasure. Loud and often.

Years later, Rolovich acknowledged, “My focus wasn’t there. They weren’t booing me as a person, they were booing my preparation.”

Rolovich vowed, and subsequently delivered on a promise to himself, never to let that happen again.

So, as the Rainbow Warriors endeavor to put the loss at Army behind them and get ready to plunge back into Mountain West Conference play next week, Rolovich has had ample opportunity to renew the pledge and focus his team on the task at hand, Duquesne (pronounced: dyoo-KANE).

Which is why you didn’t hear Rolovich bite, publicly at least, this week when folks wondered if this would be the opportunity he was waiting for under the new redshirt rule to get freshman quarterback Chevan Cordeiro and other backups some playing time. It is why he hasn’t said much about the resumption of the approaching Mountain West schedule despite invitations to look ahead.

And why Rolovich has taken every opening to talk up the Dukes.

Meanwhile, Duquesne’s place on the schedule this week is due more to advance planning than coincidence. The Dukes of the Northeast Conference were signed to fill a specific role. Coming off a 9,962-mile round trip and physical game at Army, UH knew three years ago this would stack up as a rebound game no matter how the West Point contest turned out and went shopping for an FCS team on the scheduling version of match.com.

Enter the Dukes from urban Pittsburgh, who signed on for just their third Football Bowl Subdivision opponent and making their first trip west of the Rocky Mountains since 1947. If tonight’s homecoming crowd tops 20,329, it will be the largest audience Duquesne has played before since football was reinstated there in 1969.

While FBS members, such as UH, have a ceiling of 85 athletic scholarships and the FCS limit is normally 63, the NEC permits its members no more than 45, though they may be parceled out in equivalencies and augmented with need-based aid.

The Rainbow Warriors do not lack for edges against the visitors tonight, but one of the best things they might have going for them this their head coach’s memories of 2000.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.