Sometimes, in years when Hawaii doesn’t make it to its own bowl game — usually because of not enough wins, once because of too many — one of the squads that does get in is the surrogate home team.

There was no question which that was in Saturday’s EasyPost Hawaii Bowl at the Ching Complex.

San Jose State’s starting quarterback, Chevan Cordeiro, was formerly the starter and a captain at UH, and as a high school player had followed Tua Tagovailoa as an All-Stater at Saint Louis School. Spartans head coach Brent Brennan is a cousin of the late Colt Brennan, the most legendary of all Rainbow Warriors legends. San Jose State’s kicker, Kyler Halvorsen, is a local boy and former UH player.

Brent Brennan, a former Hawaii assistant coach, even wore Colt’s UH jersey at a Hawaii Bowl lead-up event.

So, even though the Warriors and Spartans go after each other hard each year as Mountain West competitors, there was plenty of support for them this week — and at Saturday’s game, where seemingly half of the crowd wore Cordeiro jerseys.

And in this corner, in the black trunks (actually, their main color is teal, but you know where I’m going with this) … the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, from half an ocean and a continent away.

They play in a conference most casual fans here are only vaguely aware of, the Sun Belt. And, in recent years, they usually perform better than the 7-5 record they finished the 2023 regular season with.

And, now, it’s 8-5. CCU won 24-14, in what for most of the game was a snoozer of the first order. If you’ve got kids that can’t sleep because they’re waiting for Santa Claus tonight, show them this. They’ll be out cold in minutes.

It was so bad that the most interesting thing to happen in the first 20 minutes of game time was a player losing his helmet four times. Chanticleers offensive lineman Zac Elam’s hat came off three times in the first quarter, and a total of five in the game.

As for losing his helmet so often, Elam said it fit just fine.

“There was a lot of hands to the face stuff going on early,” he said. “But the refs took care of it eventually. The main thing is we won.”

Neither team’s offense did much, and when they did, it seemed like there was almost always a penalty flag wiping out a big gain. Coastal Carolina did manage to build a 14-0 lead through three quarters, though.

To this point, San Jose State’s most exciting play was an electrifying 27-yard run by Cordeiro, during which he hurdled a prone Chanticleers defender. That got the Spartans to the CCU 6, but then they immediately lost a fumble.

Finally, in the fourth quarter, what had been a game-long advertisement for Hawaii’s beaches, something called EasyPost, and betting the under turned into an exciting football game.

The surrogate home team made a game of it.

The Spartans rallied with two fourth-quarter touchdowns, one on a 35-yard pass by Cordeiro. San Jose State trailed just 17-14 after Halvorsen’s second PAT, with plenty of time left — 8 minutes and 30 seconds to be exact.

But then the Chanticleers steadily ate up yards and the clock. They capped a 10-play, 75-yard drive that consumed 5:47 with the most spectacular play of the game.

Sam Pinckney, who has caught a pass in an NCAA-record 58 consecutive games, latched onto his eighth of this game — in the end zone, with one hand at the end of his outstretched arm.

Maybe it was too late for it to count, but I finally had someone to cast a vote for MVP for with 2:43 left. Pinckney finished with 123 yards receiving, and these last 8 sealed the win for Coastal Carolina.

“Anything I can get a hand on, I have a chance,” said a beaming Pinckney, while handing off his 2-year-old daughter to his wife, Claudia. “And we came so far, we really wanted to finish with a win. It was such a fun event, such a fun time. Most of us have never been to Hawaii before.”