Dave Reardon: Hawaii would have been entertaining to watch in a bowl game

OF course you’d prefer to be at the elite level of scoreboard watching that the few remaining contenders for the College Football Playoff found themselves at during the last full day of the regular season.

But considering the depth of despair of the University of Hawaii program just two weeks ago, having even the smallest sliver of hope for a bowl-game bid was pretty remarkable as Rivalry Saturday wrapped up. But that sliver eventually evaporated, and the UH football team is done for the season.

Too bad style points don’t count toward bowl eligibility, because the Rainbow Warriors earned plenty of them in their 38-14 victory at Wyoming. Yes, that’s correct: AT Wyoming. The last time UH had won at War Memorial Stadium was in 2001 — whoa, hang on, that’s the War Memorial Stadium on Maui; tack on another decade for the one in Laramie, 1991, back when Jason Elam was still kicking field goals in a Rainbows uni.

The current team did its part Saturday by dominating from the start against the Cowboys. That 50-yard Smart bomb to Jared from Chevan Cordeiro for a TD right at the half made it 31-7, and hard for anyone to come back. Even a 12 1⁄2-point favorite at home.

But to get into a bowl game — namely the EasyPost Hawaii Bowl — was anything but easy. UH had to hope for other things to happen that were out of its control.

That’s because 6-6 is better than 6-7, and many teams were at 5-6 going into play Saturday — including some playing each other. This is one of those rare circumstances when that additional Week Zero (aka, Hawaii Exemption) game might work against you.

Plus, who really wants to see a team with a losing record in a bowl game, anyway?

In 2016, there were 23,175 who did.

They saw a 6-7 UH team win a wildly entertaining 52-35 Hawaii Bowl against Middle Tennessee State to cap Nick Rolovich’s first year as head coach.

It ain’t gonna happen, but I’m raising my hand in the affirmative for this year’s team. The Warriors were darn near unwatchable much of the season, but I’d like to have seen this new and improved version of the past two weeks for a Christmas Eve hana hou.

After that brutal loss at UNLV, the Warriors stood at 4-7 … and three of the wins were against New Mexico State and Portland State.

But then something clicked. The Warriors have scored 88 points in their victories against Colorado State and at Wyoming; maybe it’s not a coincidence that offensive coordinator and play-caller Bo Graham moved from the sideline to the upper-level coaches box two games ago.

Whenever people talk about the benefits of a bowl game, they include the extra practice time. It didn’t help the 2016 Hawaii team the next year, since the Warriors struggled to 3-9 in 2017. But since then, UH has played in bowl games the past three years, and a bid this season would have broken the school record for most years in a row playing after the regular season.

Of course, if we’re going to talk about postseason prowess, it’s hard to beat the Rainbow Wahine volleyball program and its storied history that includes four national championships. Actually, it was pretty hard for anyone to beat them this year once Big West competition got going.

With their victory over Cal State Northridge on Friday, UH clinched a spot in the national championship tournament for the 46th time since 1974.

It’s a routine level of success that can easily be taken for granted and often was toward the end of Dave Shoji’s legendary 42-year coaching career, and the start of Robyn Ah Mow’s.

That figures to be less likely, at least for a while, since fans went through a year without a Wahine season at all, plus not being allowed to cheer them on in person for most of this campaign. Even the men’s team winning the national championship last spring couldn’t take all of the sting out of that.

When the Wahine started 3-5 in nonconference play, Ah Mow wasn’t worried. She knew the UH roster had plenty of talent; it just took some adjustments to find the right combination and time for the team to jell.

They won’t know where (too bad it won’t be here) and whom they play in the NCAAs until today’s selection show. Ah Mow said after Friday’s match she wasn’t sweating it.

Why should she?

The Wahine knew they were in. No scoreboard watching necessary.