UH vs Boise State Previews (and BCS Stuff)

Here's a preview of the game from the AP.

For the Western Athletic Conference, the day after Thanksgiving might as well be a holiday, too.

No. 17 Boise State plays at No. 14 Hawaii on Friday night, putting the WAC’s best on display for the whole country to watch. The league hopes what poll voters and bowl organizers see is at least one team worthy of a Bowl Championship Series bid. Maybe even two.

Here's a preview from The Sports Network.

No longer a pushover on the defensive side of the ball, the Warriors are actually getting pretty good at the game, allowing opponents just 23.5 ppg to rank second in the conference and 38th in the nation at the moment. Considering how much teams have to resort to passing the ball once the Warriors post numerous touchdowns early in games, the secondary has been rather impressive in allowing just 223.4 ypg to rank third in the WAC. Opposing quarterback under the gun are not only facing a quick secondary, they are also having to prepare for a mad pass rush that is first in the WAC and fourth in the nation in both sacks (3.5 per game) and TFLs (8.6).

Mayor Mufi Hannemann announced some measures being taken to ease traffic congestion and boost security for the game.

Mayor Hannemann said, “With the undefeated UH Warriors and Boise State Broncos meeting on Friday afternoon for WAC title bragging rights, on top of the post-Thanksgiving shopping spree and rush-hour traffic, we’re anticipating a lot of traffic congestion and we will be prepared.”

He said the City will have technicians manually operating traffic signals at key intersections surrounding Aloha Stadium, while the Traffic Management Center will be providing information to the radio stations.

The LA Times' Chris Dufresne takes a look at this week's matchups, including UHvBSU, and talks to Karl Benson about the rankings.

Kansas is No. 1 in Jeff Sagarin's ratings this week with a schedule rank of 101; Hawaii is No. 32 with a schedule rank of 153.

No one is arguing Hawaii should be ranked ahead of Kansas, but why the discrepancy?

Benson thinks a built-in bias favors BCS conference schools.

"The system is built around the six conferences," Benson said. "And whether it's preseason rankings or regular season rankings, the teams in those leagues are going to get greater recognition."

Tim Dahlberg of the AP writes about the big thing working against UH if it has to rely on an at-large bid.

Everyone, it seems, loves an underdog. But they don't necessarily want to watch them in a BCS game, and Hawaii's selection as an at-large team isn't guaranteed as long as the first mission of the BCS operatives is to keep their rich television sponsors happy.

And by the way, next week's game against Washington is pretty much sold out.

General-public tickets for the University of Hawai`i football team's regular season finale against Washington on Saturday, Dec. 1, at 6:30 p.m. at 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium are sold out. Less than 200 UH student tickets remain for the contest, which will be televised on ESPN2.