The University of Hawaii and Notre Dame tried but couldn’t put together a game that would have brought the Irish and linebacker Manti Te‘o here for the 2012 regular-season finale.

After Te‘o, a Punahou School graduate, announced in mid-December that he would forgo an early entry for the NFL Draft to return to South Bend, Ind., for his senior year, Irish officials said they approached UH about a Dec. 1, 2012, date.

"He has been a great representative to our program and I think that given everything he and Robby (Toma) and the guys have contributed to our program, we were hoping maybe it could happen," said John Heisler, senior associate athletic director at Notre Dame.

Moreover, the Irish said they wanted to place the game on NBC, their television partner.

The proposal was attractive to both schools. Notre Dame, which was to close its regular season Nov. 24 at Southern California, could pick up a 13th game by playing here, and UH would have filled out its schedule, which still has one opening.

"I think we all had interests in trying to figure out if this was realistic, but the timing of it probably wasn’t great," Heisler said. "There were a million pieces to the puzzle, all of which had to work and it just didn’t quite happen," Heisler said.

For one, UH is contracted to play South Alabama on Dec. 1, and moving the game involved negotiating a waiver or another date with the Jaguars. In addition, as a Mountain West Conference member in 2012, UH’s TV rights belong to CBS College Sports, which would have had to reach an agreement with NBC.

"Behind the scenes we were trying to help make it happen, but there were just so many things that had to happen," said Jim Donovan, UH athletic director.

For UH, which is staring at a $1 million to $2 million athletic department deficit this fiscal year, the game had budget-boosting potential. Notre Dame has averaged more than 43,000 tickets sold in its last three games against UH.

"Of course, we’d love to play a program of the stature of Notre Dame, and even though it didn’t come together this time, we will work with them on something in the future," Donovan said.

Donovan said MWC schedules are due out next month, and UH will see where it has an open date and make a last-ditch effort at finding an opponent to come to Aloha Stadium.

Failing that, Donovan said UH and the MWC are proposing NCAA legislation that would allow the Warriors to open future seasons a week earlier.