At the University of Hawaii, what is known as “week zero” now has potential to add up to a lot more.

Armed with the newly expanded Hawaii Exemption, UH can presumably spare us having Western Carolina as the season-opening football appointment for 2017.

The Catamounts of the Football Championship Subdivision are signed for a Sept. 2, 2017 appearance at Aloha Stadium, which was originally the default opener.

But with the adoption of proposal 2015-79-FBS, the NCAA has decreed that “Hawaii may play its first permissible contest on the Saturday prior to the Thursday preceding Labor Day.” which in 2017 is Aug. 26.

Which means the Rainbow Warriors are limited only by their own initiative and the appetite of potential opponents in filling the date with a more attractive and, hopefully, marquee opponent for 2017.

UH secured a waiver permitting it to open the 2016 season in Sydney against California on Aug. 27. Coupled with a Sept. 3 game at Michigan, that leaves this season’s Sept. 10 home opener to Tennessee-Martin of the Football Championship Subdivision.

Now, with the new and improved Hawaii Exemption in place for the long haul, the hope is that UH need not dip into the FCS ranks again for many years and home openers might again provide attractive entree to the season.

With the expansion of the major conferences and adoption of league championship games, teams that once jumped at the opportunity to open their seasons here began backing away earlier this decade, not wanting travel to Hawaii to impact preparation for the following week.

For example, USC insisted on Thursday or Friday games and, finally, deigned not to book any more trips here at all. Last year Colorado also sought — and got UH to agree to — a box office-damaging Thursday game.

Suddenly the 13th game, once a bonus, came back to haunt UH.

Seeing where things were headed, several years ago then-UH athletic director Jim Donovan mounted a campaign for legislation to allow Hawaii a one-week jump on the schedule, updating an exemption first won by Hank Vasconcellos in the 1950s.

When David Matlin became athletic director he began polishing up the initiative, secured backing from the Mountain West Conference and won unanimous approval from fellow Football Bowl Subdivision members last month.

Suddenly, instead of opening in week one of the schedule, “week zero” — as associate AD Carl Clapp terms it — gives UH a wild card to work with. One that, with a little imagination and some salesmanship, could improve scheduling for years to come.

“I’m excited about the opportunities that this affords us,” Matlin said.

Apart from having greater appeal to visiting teams it also means that UH need not play 13 games in 13 consecutive weeks, the kind of debilitating meat grinder the ’Bows faced last season.

Now UH has to go out and sell it to the kind of opponents that fans will find worthy of a season opener.

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