The burden of finding yourself adrift as an independent in college football these days can drive a team to great lengths.

In the case of the University of Massachusetts, that would be more than 5,000 miles.

Or, the distance from Amherst, Mass., to Aloha Stadium, where the Minutemen meet Hawaii in the regular-season finale on Saturday.

Forced out of the Mid-American Conference after four seasons with nowhere else to go, UMass needed games and it needed them in numbers to fill out its independent schedules and retain its recent hard-won Football Bowl Subdivision status.

So the Minutemen signed home-and-home games with Hawaii and Brigham Young among others to fill out their dance cards for the 2016 and ’17 seasons, their first without a conference affiliation.

Along with nearly $3.5 million in guarantee money — $400,000 of it from UH — the Minutemen managed to put together a competitive schedule for 2016.

So competitive that the rigors of playing at least six bowl-bound teams, including Florida, have taken their toll in a 2-9 record.

When UMass made the leap from Football Championship Subdivision to FBS for 2012, it was with the move from the Colonial Athletic Association to the Mid-American Conference.

But the MAC decided it wanted UMass to compete in the conference in all its sports, not just football. So it triggered a clause in the membership agreement giving the Minutemen the ultimatum of being all in or leaving.

Not wanting to give up its charter membership in the Atlantic 10, where it has been a force in basketball and other sports, for the increased travel costs of the Midwest-based MAC, UMass opted for the exit after going 7-25. And crossed its collective fingers.

The hope was that Big 12 expansion would take away a team or two from the American Athletic Conference, opening up some coveted space for the Minutemen.

“It didn’t happen, so we’ve built a schedule since I’ve gotten here to take care of us through 2016, ’17, ’18 and now we’re working on ’19,” athletic director Ryan Bamford said.

“I don’t think it will ever be any harder than the schedule we have (now),” said coach Mark Whipple, the school’s winningest football coach, who took the Minutemen to the 1998 Division I-AA national championship and returned in 2014. “I certainly hope not. Not many people (in the Group of Five conferences) have played three SEC teams, BYU and Boston College.”

The wide-ranging scheduling has opened some doors in recruiting, but overall, with a young team, “It has been challenging,” Whipple said.

Indeed, there are reasons why only three others among the 128 FBS schools currently compete sans conference affiliation — Notre Dame, BYU and Army.

And while BYU looks for a suitable conference that will accept it, even Notre Dame has established scheduling ties with the Atlantic Coast Conference.

“It (independence) is not a long-term plan for us,” Bamford said. “Our goal is to definitely to get ourselves into a football conference, and we make no (bones) about saying that.”

In the meantime, the Minutemen are treating this last leg of their inaugural independent season “like a bowl game,” a spokeswoman said. With no classes back on campus in Amherst this week to return to after the 51-9 loss at BYU, the Minutemen arrived in Honolulu on Sunday, just hours after UH.

UMass’ 75-member traveling party is to be joined today by the balance of the roster, scout team members and walk-ons, mixing Pearl Harbor experiences with practices.

For one week, at least, independence has some perks for the Minutemen.

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