Hawaii AD: "Very real" possibility the football program shuts down.

A city with 300,000 people in a state with 1.4 million and no secondary TV markets within 2,000 miles can support an NFL team? sure.

 

London is one of the largest cities in the world.
A little bit different from Hawaii.
It has eight times the population of Hawaii and NONE of the transportation issues associated with island living.

 

Yeah, I'm just spitballing.

But Honolulu is an area of a million people with no other sports competition. The schedules would match up. I was mostly just saying it would make more sense than spending a lot of money to pump up the failing college program.

 

No matter how many times I hear Goodell say he wants a team in London, I won't believe it until it happens. Could I see a few different teams playing games over there so there are 6-8 games a year being played there? Sure. But there's a big difference between that at the city actually having a franchise. A franchise there would be an unmitigated disaster.

It would be a good idea to have a preseason game in Hawaii. They've gone away from the preseason games in Australia and China, but I can't imagine anyone having a problem with a preseason game in Hawaii.

 

Home cooking in Hawaii goes way, way back. in 1972, Hugh Durham pulled his Florida State basketball off the court and forfeited a game because he was so irate over the officiating.

 

Can you site an example or two? For that matter, when is the last time Hawaii beat a top 25 non-conference team?

 

You might get teams who are willing to come in in early September and late November, but that's about it. Nobody is flying out there in October or November in the middle of conference play. And "big" teams aren't doing it at all.

 

Not sure if it's still in place, but the NCAA used to have a rule -- as an incentive for teams to travel to Hawaii -- that any team that played a road game there was allowed to play an extra home game.
In 1996, that rule led to BYU playing 15 games when 11 was the norm. They got their normal 11, played in the Pigskin Classic in August, got the Hawaii bonus game, then played in the WAC championship game and a bowl.

 

That's the rule for Hawai'i and Alaska.

 

That's the only college football team in the state, right?
If the program shuts down, would Hawaii be the only state in the country without a state college or university with football or is Alaska without college football, too?
There was a time when no state school in Vermont had a team, but Division III Castleton State started one a few years ago.

 

Alaska Fairbanks used to have a football team, but I'm pretty sure they folded the program in the 50s or 60s.