The University of Hawai’i football team won three games last season. Two of those were against FCS opponents. This season it has won no games against any FBS opponents and it has no FCS cupcakes on its schedule.

The program is costing too much for too little return. Chancellor Tom Apple might have had it right when he suggested UH might have to drop to FCS level, but the same travel and support expenses would still be there if the U did. Getting opponents would be even harder as an independent. There’s only one FCS conference in the West, the Big Sky Conference, and it’s got thirteen members already. I’m absolutely positive that any talk of UH joining that conference would include a requirement that member schools traveling here for sports events would receive subsidies for air and hotel expenses, just as the Mountain West required when UH joined it several years ago. So what do you gain? A lower level of competition, fewer scholarships for student-athletes, and about the same amount of expense as you have now in Division I. Why bother?

Maybe it’s time to drop football altogether. Other universities have done that and survived quite well.