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The Sheraton Hawaii Bowl is expected to announce soon the first Monday game in its 11-year history.
The game will kick off at 3 p.m. Dec. 24 at Aloha Stadium, effectively making it a Monday night game for mainland TV audiences on ESPN.
The way was cleared for the game to make its first Monday appearance when the NFL announced its regular-season schedule this week and did not place a game on the 24th, removing the possibility of the Hawaii Bowl having to go head-to-head with the NFL, which the game wanted to avoid.
The NFL has games on Dec. 22 and 23, the penultimate week of the regular season.
The game will match, for the first time, a representative from the Mountain West Conference against a member of Conference USA. With the University of Hawaii’s move to the MWC after 33 years in the Western Athletic Conference, the bowl has replaced its WAC contract with one for the MWC.
UH will represent the MWC if the Warriors win at least six of their 12 games to become bowl eligible. The Warriors have appeared in six of the previous 10 Hawaii Bowls. UH was not bowl eligible for three of them (2005, ’09 and ’11) and appeared in the 2008 Bowl Championship Series Sugar Bowl.
