"Let somebody else try to do this trip and see how they do."
— UH football coach Greg McMackin on the Warriors’ split of the just-completed two-game road trip.

Is somebody a little bit testy after two weeks on the continent?

Worn by the travel, weary from criss-crossing time zones and tired of sharing practices with parachutists and romping buffaloes?

Well, welcome to a taste of life as the University of Hawaii football team will likely know it should the Warriors choose to go independent in football.

Only instead of one set of back-to-back games on the mainland a season, buckle up and get ready for the possibility of doing it twice a year.

For all the romantic notions of the independent path less traveled, if you are UH, the school way out here in the Pacific, some of the realities can be daunting. Especially scheduling.

The good thing about conference membership, even in a diluting Western Athletic Conference, is that you are guaranteed a set of games, home and away cheap. It might be Idaho and New Mexico State, but it is something. They come automatically every year, sort of like property tax bills.

As an independent, however, UH would be responsible for filling a full 13-game slate instead of the current five. It would be more at the mercy of the whims and demands of the marketplace.

UH will have little trouble booking opponents early in the season and, particularly non-Bowl Championship Series conference foes, toward the end. The Warriors might have to pay some of them a pretty penny, but UH will be able to get them.

October and November, when most teams are in conference play, scheduling will be more problematic. As most coaches who have made the trek will tell you, it is the week after playing here that their teams usually feel the impact, and nobody wants to pay for the delights of a trip to Paradise with a debilitating conference loss.

For that reason it is likely UH will have to play the bulk of its six road games in the middle of the season. Then, just as now, doubling up on games will save money and travel time. Mid-semester class work missed is another matter.

UH might have no choice but to go independent if the WAC further implodes or expansion is bungled. But, until then, as the past two weeks illustrate, UH should give some long thought to the challenges that come with independence.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com