McMackin hopes all those prep stars are watching

SEATTLE >> Two years ago on national signing day, University of Hawaii football coach Greg McMackin couldn’t bring himself to utter the “W” word in public.

When it came to Washington, the school that had suddenly swooped in and taken four players out of the Warriors’ back yard in the 11th hour of recruiting, McMackin tersely referred to it as “that school.”

Nobody had to fill in the blank to know who he was referring to.

The intervening months might have lessened some of the pique, but be assured beating “that school” today at 9:30 a.m. (Hawaii time) in Husky Stadium would be something to savor for a lot of reasons dear to McMackin and the Warriors.

Especially after taking in UW’s well-appointed facilities Friday and marveling at the $250 million in stadium refurbishing set to begin after this season.

The Warriors are 6-point underdogs on the Las Vegas betting lines, one of the closest spreads they’ve faced when stepping into a Pac-12 home stadium.

A victory today, should the Warriors come up with one, would mark UH’s first 2-0 start against major college opposition (Oregon and Air Force) since the 1992 Holiday Bowl season, a fact that would be burnished all the more by accomplishing it against Pac-12 foes.

Doing it in venerable Husky Stadium would resonate much more and, depending upon what happens elsewhere across the landscape this weekend, might be enough to vault the Warriors into the national polls.

For McMackin it would mark his biggest nonconference road triumph, quite an exclamation point for what would then be his 25th victory (against 18 losses). And not a bad resume-building piece to take into contract extension talks with the administration.

In the immediate term it would also make for a nice conversation piece when recruiting gets rolling. Colorado and Washington are two of the biggest competitors UH has for blue chip instate talent, and to hold victories over both would make for a nice living room sales pitch. “Why go there when you can stay home and play at a high level, because we beat both of those schools,” UH recruiters could boast. “After all, we’re 3-0 against Washington in the modern era.”

Indeed one of the reasons UH got the Huskies on the schedule in the first place was that UW saw it as an opportunity to entrench itself in Hawaii recruiting. Current head coach Steve Sarkisian says he hopes to keep UH on the schedule, “because we plan to continue to recruit Hawaii heavily.”

UH and UW are scheduled to meet in 2014 (Seattle) and ’15 (Aloha Stadium) and may discuss an extension.

To be sure, over the years the Huskies have done well recruiting in Hawaii — too well, a line of UH coaches will tell you, recalling Bern Brostek, Olin Kreutz, Ink Aleaga, Ricky Andrews and Daniel Te’o-Nesheim, among others, heading to Seattle. Imagine if a couple of them had stayed home to play.

And, then, there are the Warriors who have made recruiting inroads in the Pacific Northwest, where a victory over UW would further validate them.

The Warriors wouldn’t mind at all if they were able to give people here reason to refer to them as “that school.”