The University of Hawaii is expected to open its football season with a Mountain West Conference game against Colorado State on Aug. 25 and thereby gain an open date on the 2018 schedule.

It will mark UH’s first season-opening conference game since 1991.

The game, when it receives final approval, will be played in Fort Collins, Colo., according to people briefed on the schedule but not authorized to comment until the conference releases it next month.

UH had been scheduled to opens its season Sept. 1 with a nonconference game against Navy at Aloha Stadium and play CSU in late September or early October.

The game with the Midshipmen will still be played on the original date but by invoking the so-called Week Zero option of a game in August allowed by the NCAA, UH will gain an open date to break up what otherwise would have been 13 games in 13 weeks.

Week Zero is part of an amended Hawaii exemption campaigned for by UH and approved by the NCAA beginning with the 2016 season.

UH and CSU have reportedly signed off on the switch and are awaiting approval by the MWC.

CSU is one of three opponents outside the MWC’s West Division UH plays this season. Utah State and Wyoming are the others. The Rainbow Warriors lost to the Rams, 51-21, in 2017.

UH declined comment and a spokesman for CSU said in an email, “Until the MWC schedule is released by the conference office we would defer to them about specific game details.”