The Western Athletic Conference is out to stick it to the University of Hawaii football team for jumping to the Mountain West Conference next year.

The WAC is attempting to polish up the teams it hopes will still be part of its 2012 lineup.

WAC commissioner Karl Benson is still miffed about being blindsided by UH’s move to the MWC.

Conspiracy theorists have had plenty to ruminate on as the Warriors meet Utah State tonight, the second of a rare three consecutive conference opponents who have the strategic luxury of an open date before playing UH.

The Oliver Stone-like notion of a nefarious scheduling plot from WAC headquarters deepened after last-place Idaho used its off-week to make changes, including a quarterback switch, that nearly resulted in an upset of the Warriors.

Now, heavens to Benson, comes Utah State off an open date that has allowed it to recharge and more fully prepare for the Warriors. And, next up is a game at well-rested Nevada that, if UH gets past the Aggies tonight, should be a showdown for the WAC title.

It makes for juicy speculation and Internet chatter, but, alas, there isn’t much to support it.

Too bad, too, because the Warriors and their fans could use a particularly egregious slight to work up a lather of righteous indignation down the stretch.

Such talk is “ridiculous,” said WAC associate commissioner Jeff Hurd, who put together the schedule and is not the vindictive sort.

One of your first tip-offs the fix isn’t in is that athletic director Jim Donovan and head football coach Greg McMackin aren’t screaming collusion from the top of Aloha Stadium. Donovan, who must balance the athletic department checkbook, and McMackin, the coach looking for a contract extension, have vested interests in the WAC not using loaded dice.

Instead, Donovan said, “I can see how people look at it. But (a conspiracy against UH) is coming to the wrong conclusion.”

“It (three consecutive opponents with open dates) is just something you have to deal with,” McMackin said.

We saw from the sideline explosion at Louisiana Tech how McMackin can be when he believes his team has been wronged. And, no, the 20-minute officiating misadventure that prompted it wasn’t a conspiracy by the game officials, just ineptitude.

If the WAC had wanted to take a good shot at UH while helping its remnant teams, it would not have given the Warriors an open date and resulting 12 days between road games at Louisiana Tech and San Jose State. Fact is the WAC actually did UH a considerable favor and the school and the conference tried to help each other out of a scheduling quagmire that Nevada and Fresno State contributed to.

Whatever ill feeling WAC headquarters had over UH’s impending departure, it would hardly want to do Nevada, of all schools, any favors. The Wolf Pack were a critical domino in the exodus to the MWC. If Nevada, whose late president Milton Glick coined the code word “the project” for the talks with Brigham Young, had held firm, there might not have been a breakaway to the MWC by Nevada and Fresno State last summer.

Of course, the Warriors can render any machinations — imagined or real — moot by winning.

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