Mountain West to guarantee Hawaii Bowl for UH

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HENDERSON, NEV. >> A measure is in the works to ensure that a bowl-eligible Hawaii football team would be in the hometown bowl for the holidays.

It had been widely believed the Rainbow Warriors were assured a berth in the Hawaii Bowl if they finished the regular season with a .500 record or better. As it was revealed last year, there no longer is a contractual guarantee among the Warriors, the Mountain West Conference and ESPN Events, which runs the annual holiday-time bowl in December.

But MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said a motion is underway to award the Warriors an automatic berth if they meet bowl-eligibility requirements.

“I don’t know if we’ve formalized that, but that is going to be the intent that if and when (the Warriors) are eligible, they’ll play in the Hawaii Bowl,” Thompson said at Tuesday’s Mountain West Media Days at the Green Valley Resort. “It goes back to the old format. It was different last year. They were not (automatically guaranteed a berth).”

The Hawaii Bowl was created in 2002 after the Warriors went 9-3, punctuated with a rout of previously unbeaten Brigham Young, but did not get an invite to a postseason game. Since then, every bowl-eligible UH team — except in 2007, when the Warriors played in the 2008 Sugar Bowl — has competed in the Hawaii Bowl.

Last year, the Warriors beat UNLV to clinch a winning regular season. But the celebration was put on hold after San Diego State athletic director John David Wicker questioned UH’s assumption of an automatic berth.

“The league always wants Hawaii (in the Hawaii Bowl) and ESPN wants Hawaii there for ticket sales,” Wicker was quoted as saying in the week leading to the regular-season finale between UH and SDSU. “But if it came down to it, and there was no other bowl spot, I would fight to say (if) we beat Hawaii (in the regular-season finale) and we finished ahead of them, we should be in Hawaii ahead of them, or Boise, or Fresno, or whoever.”

UH beat SDSU to make the argument moot. UH played Louisiana Tech in the 2018 SoFi Hawaii Bowl. With 82 bowl-eligible teams competing for 78 spots, 6-6 Wyoming of the MWC was left out last year.

Now, if all goes according to plan, a deserving Hawaii team will have a spot. “It wasn’t a given,” Thompson said of the recent arrangement. “But it will go back to the old days where if Hawaii is 6-6 (or better), they’ll stay in Hawaii.”