One way or another, it seems, the University of Hawaii and Louisiana-Monroe football teams were destined to cross paths this season.

If not at Aloha Stadium on Saturday, then surely college football’s two most well-traveled teams figured to bump into each other at an airport, hotel, bus station, bank window or hire-a-coach.com website.

Talk about your frequent fliers, here is one team, the Warhawks, that plays more road games (eight) than anybody in the Football Bowl Subdivision this season and another, the Rainbow Warriors, that has traveled more miles (41,000) than any college or NFL team.

Not that either one of them has a road victory to show for it, going a collective 0-13 so far.

Which is part of why both ULM (1-10) and UH (2-10) are being run by interim head coaches while they look for new ones.

But if the road has been strewn with lopsided losses averaging more than 20 points per game, both schools have been well-paid for some of the bigger out-of-conference lumps they have absorbed.

ULM is getting nearly $3 million for nonconference shellackings at Georgia (51-14) and Alabama (34-0), a defeat at Tulsa (34-24) and whatever the visit to Halawa brings.

Meanwhile, UH is cashing checks totaling $2.3 million for non-league losses at Ohio State (38-0) and Wisconsin (28-0).

Being on the receiving end of the pummel-for-pay concept is new to UH, thanks in part to its presently reduced financial circumstances. But if long-term lessons about “money games” weren’t gleaned from visits to Columbus and Madison and how they helped impact where the Rainbow Warriors find themselves today, then they need only look at ULM.

The Warhawks have long been a poster program for so-called “guarantee” games. The official motto, as listed in ULM’s media guide, is “Anyone Anywhere,” but it might as well be: “No odds — or paycheck — are too big.”

One reason the Warhawks signed on for the UH contest was to take advantage of the NCAA’s “Hawaii Exception” permitting a 13th game and, of course, an additional road revenue opportunity.

They have been known to play Auburn, Alabama and Arkansas in succession and throw in Ole Miss for a late-season exclamation point. Next year their schedule includes games at Oklahoma and Auburn.

The practice dates from their days as an independent, during which they came to Aloha Stadium in 1997 as the Northwest Louisiana Indians and, thanks to a well-executed hook and lateral, prevailed 23-20 in overtime.

More recently, as Sun Belt Conference members, the Warhawks’ travels have been necessitated by an athletic department budget that ranks at the bottom of the 127-member FBS.

To be sure, the Warhawks have had some notable successes: a 21-14 stunning of Nick Saban and Alabama in 2007 and the 34-31 “Shock in Little Rock” upset of Arkansas in 2012.

But in the bigger picture, they have managed just one winning season (2012) in the past 22 years.

That’s something for the new UH coach and his bosses to keep in mind going forward.

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