COLUMBUS, Ohio >> All you need to know about what the University of Hawaii football team is up against Saturday at Ohio State is this:

The defending national champion and unanimous No. 1-ranked Buckeyes petitioned the NCAA for more time to prepare for the 41-point underdog Rainbow Warriors.

With a straight face and clear conscience, too.

Coming off a Monday night victory at Virginia Tech, Buckeyes players were due a day of rest Tuesday under the NCAA’s 20-hour-a-week work rule. So, Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer said, "We appealed to the NCAA to let us meet with (the players) Tuesday and all that, and they said ‘no.’"

The funny part is he seemed genuinely surprised at the refusal.

Which tells you something about the yield-no-edge and take-no-prisoners mind-set of a $5.2 million-a-year coach who is home against a team traveling 4,516 miles that the ESPN’s Football Power Index says has a 1 percent chance of winning.

It says, for example, that while there might be other stadiums in the land in which the Rainbow Warriors could sneak up on an overconfident opponent and, perhaps, spring a surprise, college football’s fourth largest, Ohio Stadium, on this day and under these circumstances, doesn’t appear to be one of them.

Nor, you suspect, would the crimson-clothed faithful, including 30,000 students and numbering more than 104,000 overall, be inclined to sit on their hands and let them.

For this is the Buckeyes’ home opener, a much-awaited event in these parts. A special element of which will be the unveiling and celebrating of the 2014 national championship banner — the school’s eighth overall. It is currently covered by a white shroud above the north end zone.

Moreover, as if the Ohio State lineup wasn’t deep and potent enough, the Buckeyes are due to get back four players suspended the opening week. Foremost among them being 6-foot-6-inch, 275-pound defensive end Joey Bosa, the projected No. 1 pick in the 2016 NFL Draft.

UH coach Norm Chow might well, in this 60th anniversary season, invoke the inspirational tale of the upset at Nebraska. The 6-0 victory in Lincoln in 1955 stands as one of the ‘Bows’ greatest moments.

So far he has appealed to their sense of adventure and pride. "I’ve told them to go out there and have fun, play hard and represent yourselves, your school and your state," Chow said.

The ‘Bows, who gazed upon Ohio Stadium on Thursday night with wonder before, during and after a brief walkthrough, snapping pictures and looking at the names of the past Buckeyes greats that line the stadium, seem to understand the Herculean task that awaits them and embrace it.

"These are the type of teams that you want to play, when you are fortunate enough to get the chance," said Max Wittek, quarterback and a team captain. "You want to measure yourself against the best. That’s what we’ll go there to do. We know it won’t be easy."

The ‘Bows have come a long way to collect their biggest single-game, regular-season paycheck, $1.2 million. They also come with the understanding that it will be earned.

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