The University of Hawaii opens its football season four days from now, taking on No. 24 USC at Aloha Stadium.

It’s the last shot the Rainbow Warriors get at the Trojans, at least for a while. They’ve met eight times previously. UH has never won, with the average score being 47-14.

We could say Hawaii is just 0-7 against USC, since that 2005 game technically never happened, the one where reigning Heisman winner Matt Leinart went up against his high school teammate Colt Brennan (and Tyler Graunke, they rotated). It was close for a while before getting ugly to the tune of 42-7. But, like I said, you can pretend it never happened, with the blessings of the NCAA thanks to some manini misdemeanor agent-player dealing involving Reggie Bush.

Some fans like to point to the 2010 game as one where UH had the best chance to win because the final score was 49-36 … I disagree because USC pretty much did what it wanted to on offense and its defense stiffened when needed. Even if the Warriors had punched in two early TDs from within the 5 instead of settling for field goals, the Trojans still win 49-44.

You have to go back to the 1978 game for the only one UH was really in at the end. The Rainbows were down 7-5 late at Aloha Stadium, and would have taken the lead but for a dropped pass in the end zone on a trick play. USC — with one of the greatest college teams ever, including Ronnie Lott, Charles White and freshman Marcus Allen — ended up winning 21-5. It was closer than the final score, but the visitors claim it wasn’t, because of some smelly o-fishy-ating.

I was a teenager listening to that one at home with my dad, so I can’t say. But I did see the bad calls that went against Hawaii in the 2003 game, when USC won 61-32 at the Coliseum.

The Warriors, with a defense featuring Isaac Sopoaga and Travis LaBoy, managed to keep USC’s offense at bay early and it was 3-3 after the first quarter. But calls against Hawaii on a fake punt and what appeared to be an incompletion called a fumble gave the Trojans the momentum and UH never recovered until Pete Carroll put in his backups with a 52-6 lead.

A couple of days later the head of Pac-10 officials told me those calls were deemed obviously incorrect upon review, and the officials involved would be sanctioned. That wasn’t much solace to UH and its fans.

Those calls took the Warriors out of a game in which they had been holding their own. But the roof would have caved eventually. In addition to officiating, Hawaii had some of the nation’s best talent to deal with, including the Trojans offensive coordinator who had just won the Broyles Award for best assistant coach in college football, for the third time. This Thursday, Norm Chow is on the UH sideline.

Even though this might be a down year for USC, in Chow’s second season as head coach the Rainbow Warriors are like the lower campus that they inhabit: a massive construction site. It will take much more than a couple of sketchy home-cookin’ calls by the refs for UH — which lost 49-10 at USC last year — to win this one.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783 or on Twitter as @dave_reardon.