On the third week of its season, the University of Hawaii football team made history.

Oddsmakers have installed the Rainbow Warriors as 50-point underdogs for Saturday’s road game against Michigan, matching the largest betting deficit in the program’s history.

The Warriors have been outscored a combined 112-27 in nonconference losses to Vanderbilt and Western Kentucky. Michigan opened its season with a 51-7 trouncing of Colorado State, whose head coach Jay Norvell was hired away from Nevada during the offseason. Timmy Chang, who was on Norvell’s Nevada staff the previous four years, was hired as CSU’s receivers coach before being named UH’s head coach in January.

In 1972, the Warriors were 50-point underdogs to Tennessee. The then-16th-ranked Volunteers won that game, 34-2, at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tenn.

There was no official betting line for the 1973 game between UH and Washington in Seattle. But “Chinatown oddsmakers” set the Huskies as 50-point favorites. UH upset Washington, 10-7, before 52,500 fans.

The Warriors were 41.5-point underdogs for the road game against top-ranked Ohio State in 2015. The Buckeyes won, 38-0, but did not cover the spread. It was the first of two Midwest road games in three weeks for the Warriors that year. Two weeks later, No. 22 Wisconsin defeated the Warriors, 28-0.

Nebraska was a 40-point favorite against UH in 1955 and in 1976. The Warriors stunned the Cornhuskers, 6-0, in Lincoln, Neb., in that first meeting. Twenty-one years later, the Cornhuskers hammered the Warriors, 68-3 at Aloha Stadium.

The UH coaches were back in their offices after the game on Saturday, and returned Sunday morning to review videos and plot strategies for a short week of preparation. Ahead of their first road game of the season, the Warriors will depart Wednesday afternoon on a direct charter flight to Michigan.

The Warriors appeared to have settled on Brayden Schager as their quarterback. Schager, who entered in the second quarter in relief of Joey Yellen, took 58 of 79 snaps. Schager, a second-year Warrior from Dallas, was 22-for-33 for 230 yards. He was intercepted four times — twice when the ball ricocheted off a receiver.

Despite the margin, it appeared UH’s defense made a modest gain from the previous week. In a five-series stretch from the second to the third quarter, the Warriors held the Hilltoppers to a touchdown — one-play, 17-yard scoring drive — and an average of 4.9 yards per play.

“We’re building something,” UH defensive coordinator Jacob Yoro said. “When you’re building something, it’s about growth, it’s about measuring growth. … There’s got to be an urgency to that growth. We’re not sitting there, and saying, ‘this is a three-, four-, five-year process.’ We’re building this thing for this year, for us to continue to get better, and for us to compete in Mountain West play.”

The Warriors open league play with the Oct. 8 road game against San Diego State.

Against Michigan, dimeback Ty Marsh will miss the first half after being ejected for targeting in the third quarter against Western Kentucky.

There was no immediate update on the availability of starting safety Leonard Lee, who was taken by cart to the training facility after suffering an injury in the first half.