Independence is the Answer

I don’t usually comment on the University of Hawaii Warriors, but I have a thought …

A Honolulu Star-Advertiser sports columnist recently wrote that the UH football team needs a real rivalry … perhaps like the one they had with Brigham Young University some years back. Or the Boise State Broncos, who are leaving the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) soon to join the Mountain West Conference.

Here’s my take. The UH Warrior football team is a lower-tier team playing in a weak conference. You can’t build up a rivalry with any good conference teams because as soon as a WAC team excels, it is wooed away by another conference.

I believe the only way Hawaii can develop a true football rivalry is by returning to independent status and loosening the shackles that bind it to the hinky-dink WAC. Either that, or resign themselves to being a hinky-dink team by association.

But then, who am I to criticize? I haven’t been a UH football fan in more than 35 years.