Anyone I asked leading up to this Hawaii Bowl said Oregon State would win. That was even before Boise State quarterback Joe Southwick was sent home for allegedly watering the Waikiki sidewalk from 30 stories above.

I agreed, citing the departure of Chris Petersen as the Broncos head coach as a big factor.

But it also made sense for another reason. The Beavers were the home team.

Yeah, of course, one of the two has to be designated as such in a bowl game. But in this case it was also true in reality. If Las Vegas is the Ninth Island, Corvallis, Ore., can lay claim to No. 10 … or at least the Oregon State football program can.

Just ask the Mayor of Manoa in absentia, Mike Cavanaugh. The Beavers’ offensive line coach has been gone from the University of Hawaii staff since 2004, but he’s still beloved here.

Oahuans forgot about road rage and holiday stress when they saw him on the streets this week.

"Ah yeah, ‘Hey Cav! What’s up? Wish you were back.’ It was real nice obviously to hear that. Still got a lot of friends, a lot of aloha. Lifetime, no question," Cavanaugh said. "I’ve been adopted by a lot of wonderful people. Whoever would’ve thought that for a kid who grew up in Connecticut?"

Beavers coach Mike Riley loves the connection for obvious recruiting reasons, but joked about it after the 38-23 beatdown of Boise State that seemed more like 83-23.

"He reminds everybody. He claims to be part-Hawaiian, but he doesn’t look like any Hawaiian I’ve ever seen," Riley said.

Doesn’t matter. He connected and he’s remained connected. The Beavers had five players from the island chain on their roster this season, thanks to Cavanaugh and several other coaches connected to Hawaii.

"The fact is that we have a great history here," Riley said. "We’ve got commitments now and will continue to recruit (Hawaii) as long as we’re here."

He didn’t mean "here" as in Hawaii, since it’s a dead period right now. But what transpired on the Aloha Stadium carpet Tuesday was quite a sales pitch all by itself.

The history Riley referred to includes a pipeline that goes at least as far back as the 1950s, when Joe Francis went from Kamehameha to Corvallis and the Rose Bowl. Rockne Freitas and Skippa Diaz followed in the ’60s.

The arrival of defensive coordinator Mark Banker, Cavanaugh and Joe Seumalo — all former UH coaches — threw the island harvest into high gear. When the Beavers came here in 2006, they had 10 Hawaii-raised players and they beat a UH team considered by many the best in school history.

Ryan Perry, an OSU grad assistant, was on that Warriors team. "We’ve got so many connections. Boise’s an old rivalry, going back to UH. So it’s good to beat them. The fans out here were so great, cheering ‘Go Beavs.’ It was great."

Not so great for UH. Norm Chow and his staff work hard on recruiting. But really, it’s an uphill battle against a BCS program with so much momentum and so many ties.

For just the second time this season the home team won a college football game at Aloha Stadium. And it just made the job for the team that usually calls it home a little bit harder.

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Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. Read his blog at staradvertiser.com/quickreads.