This week, Hawaii assistant football coach Dick Tomey will return to a place that experienced a near-death comeback.

In 2005, two months after Tomey accepted the head coaching job at San Jose State, the NCAA leveled penalties that would hinder the Spartans football program for the rest of the decade.

In 2003, the NCAA implemented the Academic Progress Rate, which measures student-athletes’ work toward a degree. The APR formula deducts points for players who leave a program in poor academic standing. During his predecessor’s tenure, the San Jose State football program’s scores were below 900; the APR floor is 925 points.

Because the average is based on a four-year cycle, Tomey inherited a program that would lose 57 scholarships during his five-season tenure. Although FBS schools are allowed up to 85 scholarships, Tomey said his Spartans never had more than 70 scholarship players a year.

"People get upset when they lose two scholarships," said Tomey, whose Warriors face the Spartans in San Jose on Friday. "How about 57?"

Tomey acknowledged taking over a program that "had the lowest attendance in the nation. We averaged 5,000 a game. We had the lowest APR in the nation. But we didn’t know we were going to get penalized until two months into the job."

Tomey said he kept mum on the situation because he did not want to further hurt recruiting. But, he conceded, the Spartans football program "was about to be put out of business."

For the next three years, Tomey and the SJSU administrators implemented a study hall, added academic support, and focused on recruiting players who were intent on graduating.

"There were a lot of people who worked hard to make it better, and a bunch of them are still there," Tomey said. "They raised the APR."

Despite the obstacles, Tomey’s Spartans had a better winning percentage (.541) from 2006 to 2008 than Nevada (.538) and Fresno State (.526). The Spartans still have 44 players recruited by Tomey, who retired from SJSU at the end of the 2009 season.

"When I went there, I said I’d stay five years," Tomey said. "That was my commitment, to stay five years. Once the academic situations hit us, I knew five years would be enough."

Six months after Tomey’s retirement, SJSU was notified its cycle of APR scores was good enough to allow the Spartans to offer the full 85 scholarships.

"It was a great experience," Tomey said. "Life is all about making decisions. I loved San Jose State. I still do. … We’re going to compete like heck to try to beat them, and they’re going to compete like heck to try to beat us. You can’t take away the fact that I have great affection for San Jose State."