Once upon a not-so-distant time the University of Hawaii nurtured dreams of playing football in the Pac-12 Conference, or so the Manoa Chancellor’s office used to say.

But going forward the Rainbow Warriors would be thrilled just to be able to book a Pac-12 team to play at Aloha Stadium once in a while.

The changing dynamics of scheduling were underlined for UH in negotiations with Arizona State on a recently announced agreement that will send the ’Bows to Tempe, Ariz., in 2026.

While the Sun Devils are glad to welcome UH to ASU and will write a $1.3 million check to do so, they had no interest in a return game at Aloha Stadium, or wherever the ’Bows might be playing home games then, despite several schedule openings.

Nor are the Sun Devils alone in such thinking among their conference brethren. Such is the shifting landscape that after the 2019 season only two Pac-12 teams are scheduled to play here over six subsequent seasons, Oregon State in 2024 and Arizona in 2025.

If UH wants to play a Pac-12 opponent it will have to do it on the road, where it will appear five times between 2020 and the 2026 trip to Tempe.

That’s a far cry from just a couple of years ago, when UH averaged almost a home game a season against a Pac-12 team, playing 10 of them between 2005 and ’15. Three of them were against nationally ranked opponents.

Pac-12 teams have traditionally been among the biggest box-office draws for UH — contests with USC and Washington ranked 1-2 in all-time revenue, producing in the neighborhood of $1 million in receipts.

The absence of USC — which played here four times between 1999 and 2013 and had been willing to schedule on a home-and-home basis, but has said it wasn’t interested in booking future trips — is most acutely felt.

UH officials say they remain committed to trying to add additional games with Pac-12 foes but acknowledge the uphill nature of the task. “While it is currently more challenging to get Pac-12 teams at Aloha Stadium, we are excited to be hosting Arizona and Oregon State (2019),” athletic director David Matlin said in an email. “The landscape continues to be very fluid and we are continuing to have scheduling discussions with Pac-12 schools.”

The issues are several fold. Large among them are the Pac-12 now plays nine conference games and, for the most part, restricts its teams to playing nonconference games in a narrow early-season window. Late-season games, once an attractive option of Pac-12 schools, have been off the table since the conference added a championship game.

Moreover the so-called “Hawaii Exemption” that allows teams from the mainland to play an additional game above the normal regular season ceiling has lost some of its luster now that every school can play 12. Even the recently added “Week Zero” option allowing UH foes to start their season a week earlier hasn’t completely mitigated the situation.

And, UH, which has gone 10 seasons without a sellout, is hard pressed to pay the kind of money to bring Pac-12 teams here if finances are the deciding issue.

Some of the schools that still do come, such as Oregon State, which appears here in 2019, and Oregon, in 2024, do so, in part, for recruiting reasons.

But at least they bring their teams, unlike the others, who just send recruiters.

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