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Last week the University of Hawaii chased a place in history.
This week it tries to avoid falling in step with one.
Welcome to the 2013 Rainbow Warriors football season, where you never know, from one game to the next, whether you’ll be flirting with a record pace for fame or keeping pace with a standard for futility.
In their 42-37 loss to Fresno State last week, the Rainbow Warriors came up 40 yards short of what would have been the biggest comeback victory in NCAA history. Had they been able to close out the Bulldogs, the ’Bows would have replaced Michigan State’s 35-point revival over Northwestern in 2006 as the record rally.
Instead, UH remained winless with a fourth consecutive loss (0-4, 0-2 Mountain West).
Another defeat tonight, when they play San Jose State at Aloha Stadium, would mark the first 0-5 start for the ’Bows since the cursed 0-12 campaign of 1998. A season still referred to as the “year of the bagel” around UH.
That’s the kind of comparison that weighs heavily with each loss, so the mission is to draw distance from 1998 as soon as possible. And, as luck and scheduling would have it, here come the Spartans.
They are a 1-3 (0-1 MWC) team whose desperation for a victory, any victory, rivals that of UH. While the Spartans beat Sacramento State, a Football Championship Subdivision opponent, in the season opener, they have lost three games in a row and theirs has been, by far, the more precipitous fall.
The ’Bows are coming off a 3-9 season, but the Spartans have plummeted from an 11-2 record and No. 21 final ranking last year.
Not exactly the kind of splash San Jose State had hoped for in its debut season in the MWC with a new coach, Ron Caragher, and enhanced hopes. But injuries have piled up and the Spartans limp in here trying to find a way out of their tailspin.
What we have here are two teams who see each other as targets of opportunity, 24-karat openings with which to begin salvaging something of a season that is just about at its halfway point.
After playing what the NCAA ranks as the 20th toughest schedule in the Football Bowl Subdivision to this point, the ’Bows now draw three teams — San Jose State, Nevada-Las Vegas and Colorado State — who are a collective 3-8 against FBS competition. Two of them, SJSU and CSU, are at Aloha Stadium.
So, if the ’Bows are to get something going this year, this is where it will have to begin. Especially since it would be a shame to squander the considerable energy and hope that emerged from the Fresno State game.
History also tells us that no UH football team that has suffered a five-game losing streak during the season has managed to finish at .500 or better.
For the moment, however, the focus is on winning one, the first one, this one, and putting some separation between this season and the darkest one in school history.
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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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