UH faces challenge in filling 2016 football schedule puka

You are the University of Hawaii and your football team will be between a rock and a hard place early in 2016, metaphorically speaking.

Well, actually, it will be between road games at Michigan and Arizona, which definitely qualifies as a tough place.

Come 2016 UH plays at Ann Arbor, Mich., Sept. 3 and goes to Tucson, Ariz., Sept. 17, two opponents with Top 25 potential.

Why this matters right now is that UH officials are trying to decide what goes in between — or around — those two games in the process of attempting to close out their ’16 nonconference schedule.

Nonconference schedules have not always been planned with the greatest of care, which is why UH wants to get this one done as advantageously as possible given the shrinking window.  

Ideally, you want an open date somewhere, something not afforded UH in this 13 games in 13 weeks 2015 gauntlet. Smack dab in the middle of Michigan and Arizona would be a dandy place. 

Or, failing that, a Football Championship Subdivision opponent strategically placed. The more abuser-friendly the better given the degree of difficulty of the games that will sandwich it.

Somebody, like, say, UC Davis, which fills that role for the 2015 season in which the Aggies are bookended by UH’s road games at Ohio State and Wisconsin. 

Or, Fordham, which is propitiously placed between road games to Arizona and Oregon in 2020.

Originally UH had Michigan and a less lethal Kansas on the 2016 schedule. But when the Jayhawks replaced Charlie Weis as head coach earlier this year the new guy, David Beaty, wasn’t as enamored of recruiting in Hawaii as Weis had been and didn’t want the Rainbow Warriors on the schedule. 

So, UH scrambled and put together a noteworthy replacement package with a home-and-home series against the Wildcats. 

A Nov. 26 visit by Massachusetts to Aloha Stadium is the only other nonconference game on the announced schedule, so there is some room to maneuver but the Mountain West template, time and potential opportunities are growing short.

If you are UH and have been running a string of deficits, there are also financial considerations to every action. Especially when looking down the road at the price of offering cost of attendance stipends to scholarship athletes. UH has said it expects to offer some form of COA this year and hopes to expand it in subsequent seasons.

But while the 2015 games at Ohio State and Wisconsin come with a total of $2.3 million in guarantees, the 2016 schedule is not so lucrative. Michigan will pay $1 million, but the trip to Arizona comes with a $500,000 check.

So, UH needs to balance out what it can afford to pay to bring somebody of note here and what kind of a return it can expect. For example, can UH find a Power Five conference team to make the trip even if it could afford it? Would a fellow mid-major opponent bring in more at the box office than an FCS school once the difference in guarantees is figured in? 

For UH, the challenges of 2016 aren’t that far away.

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