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Want a positive heading into Saturday’s home opener for the University of Hawaii football team at Aloha Stadium?
Here you go:
While there was no official point spread as of late Thursday for UH’s game against Tennessee Martin, one website was predicting the Rainbow Warriors will prevail 24-12.
And at this point, a win is a win, right?
Also, keep in mind that as bad as the ’Bows have been in recent seasons, they’ve delivered more often than not in the first home game.
Despite losing records every year, UH is 3-2 in its last five home openers. And, in the past 10 years, Hawaii is 7-3 in its first game at Aloha Stadium. Granted, most of those wins were over FCS opponents (like Tennessee Martin). But two were against Colorado of the Pac-12, and the three losses were all to ranked teams (USC twice and Washington).
Here’s my countdown of most memorable Hawaii home openers — most for good reasons for the hosts, some for bad.
>> 10. Sept. 2, 1995: Texas 38, Hawaii 17. The Longhorns smoked the Rainbows in a game that featured the debuts of highly touted running backs: Ricky Williams for Texas and George Ornellas for Hawaii.
>> 9. Aug. 30, 1997: Hawaii 17, Minnesota 3. Did you know Fred vonAppen beat a Big Ten team? And the ’Bows actually started this season 2-0? There wasn’t much to cheer about after that until 1999.
>> 8. Sept. 3, 1998: Arizona 27, Hawaii 6. Big win for Dick Tomey and Bob Wagner; unfortunately for the Rainbows they were on the Wildcats sideline.
>> 7. Sept. 6, 1986: Hawaii 20, Wisconsin 17. Tomey’s last UH team went 6-2 at home, with the only losses to BYU and fourth-ranked Michigan (quarterbacked by Jim Harbaugh).
>> 6. Sept. 3, 2015: Hawaii 28, Colorado 20. Another for the yes-it-really-happened file. UH beat a Power Five conference team to start last season, when it couldn’t even manage a win against anyone in the Mountain West and finished 3-10.
>> 5. Sept. 4, 1999: USC 62, Hawaii 7. Carson Palmer dominated at a sold-out Aloha Stadium, and Hawaii lost its 19th game in a row. Not a sign of things to come, though, as June Jones-coached UH started a four-game winning streak the following week on the way to 9-4 in his first season.
>> 4. Sept. 14, 1974: Hawaii 15, BYU 13. Reinhold Stuprich kicked five field goals at Honolulu Stadium and Larry Price’s first game as head coach was the last time the Rainbows would beat the Cougars until 1989.
>> 3. Aug. 31, 2002: Hawaii 61, Eastern Illinois 36. Timmy Chang and Tony Romo each threw three touchdown passes. The difference was UH’s defense, with Hyrum Peters and Abu Ma’afala both returning interceptions of Romo for TDs.
>> 2. Sept. 26, 1992: Hawaii 36, BYU 32. After starting off with wins at Oregon and Air Force, the Wagner-coached ’Bows beat the Cougars for the third time in four years. They went on to go 11-2, including beating Illinois in the Holiday Bowl.
>> 1. Sept. 3, 1988: Hawaii 27, Iowa 24. Freshman Jason Elam kicked two fourth-quarter field goals to lead the Rainbows to an upset of the ninth-ranked team in the country. UH ended up 9-3, including a season-closing 41-17 win over Oregon.
Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quickreads.
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