The watch list for the Doak Walker Award came out this week. Now, how many voters’ eyes will actually be upon Paul Harris and the other five Mountain West candidates for the award signifying top running back in college football this fall?

Well, as University of Hawaii athletic director David Matlin pointed out, the Rainbow Warriors and Harris will be on national television (ESPN) the first two weeks of the season. So, if he performs well against Cal in Australia and at Michigan, who knows?

As we anticipate the start of the 2016 season, one thing is apparent: There are plenty of Mountain West running backs returning from productive campaigns a year ago. Six of them rushed for more than 1,000 yards last season, including Harris.

Of course, the detractors who don’t consider the MWC as major college football will point out that most of that yardage was generated against Mountain West defenses.

The MWC is made up of schools that used to be in the Western Athletic Conference, which at one time was known as the wacky WAC. It got that name because many of the league’s coaches loved to throw the ball around with wide-open offenses, way before it was fashionable.

This was a bit before June Jones’ flying circus at UH, though. With a few notable exceptions like the back-to-back Garrett Gabriel bombings of Brigham Young, the Dick Tomey/Bob Wagner Hawaii teams were usually traditional in style, as they were based on defense and ball-control. Those eras featured great running backs like Gary Allen and Travis Sims to carry the load. And they were coupled with solid, tough defenses.

Hawaii’s most productive offensive player coming back from 2015 is by far Harris. His 1,132 yards made him the first UH back to go over a grand since 2010. The Rainbow Warriors are not set at quarterback, and need a repeat performance from Harris if they are to improve on the 3-10 mark of last season.

UH’s new coach, Nick Rolovich, wants to run an offense with multiple threats, one that will keep opponents guessing. But he knows if the Warriors are to enjoy a transition year more like the 9-4 under Jones in 1999 than the 3-9 under Norm Chow in 2012, the UH running game must be solid.

And the Hawaii defense will have to stop the run.

It failed at that last year; and while defensive yardage stats don’t matter much if you pile up yards and points yourself, you’d better be good at stopping your opponents if you don’t. UH yielded 239.8 rushing yards per game last year, 118th out of 127 FBS teams — without a good offense.

Here’s what the Mountain West’s best running backs who are back from last year did against Hawaii:

Donnel Pumphrey rushed for 148 yards and three of his 17 touchdowns for the season in San Diego State’s 28-14 win.

Nevada’s James Butler carried for 134 yards and two TDs in a 30-20 win.

Jeremy McNichols had 108 yards and two scores in Boise State’s 55-0 blowout.

Jacobi Owens accounted for 137 yards and the first two touchdowns in Air Force’s 58-7 romp that ended the Chow era.

Brian Hill of Wyoming got none of his 1,631 yards against UH … but that’s because the Cowboys and Warriors did not play each other last season.