Hawaii vs. Middle Tennessee, Hawaii Bowl 2016: Rainbow Warriors get first bowl win since 2006

Bowl games are cool in part because they don’t mean that much. They’re chances for teams to have fun, to experiment, and to get in touch with their wild sides. Bowl games are like the college of college football.

Exhibit A is this fake punt Hawaii used to set up a touchdown against Middle Tennessee in the Rainbow Warriors’ Hawaii Bowl victory on Saturday.

From 2012-15, Hawaii went 11-39, averaging not even three wins per season.

In 2016, Nick Rolovich’s first season began with a set of road trips unlike anything college football has seen: a Week 0 trip to Australia to play Cal, followed by Week 1 in Michigan, Week 2 at home against UT-Martin, and Week 3 at Arizona before, finally, a bye week. The Warriors were 1-3 when the road trip from hell ended, and it appeared this was going to be a customary three-win Hawaii season.

Hawaii beat Middle Tennessee in the Hawaii Bowl on Saturday in Honolulu. The final score was 52-35, Rainbow Warriors. The Blue Raiders scored the game’s first 14 points, but a Hawaiian onslaught followed, and by the time the fourth quarter neared, the ‘Bows were running outlandish fake punts with a 10-point lead and converting them.

If anyone tells me they’ve seen anything like what Hawaii pulled with its Snap The Ball Way Over The Punter’s Head To a Receiver And Have Him Throw For A First Down routine, I’ll have a hard time believing it. That set up a Hawaii touchdown, by the way.

Middle Tennessee is taking on Hawaii on Christmas Eve in the 15th edition of the Hawaii Bowl, which is played in beautiful Honolulu each year. This marks Middle Tennessee’s fifth bowl appearance in program history, and given where they’ll play Saturday night, the Blue Raiders decided to break out some very Hawaiian-themed helmets for the occasion.

The white-blue-white uniform combo paired with these lids should look pretty good on television. Middle Tennessee has lucked out in terms of bowl destinations for two years straight now — last year it got to play in the Bahamas Bowl, which is played in Nassau.

Hawaii plays in the Hawaii Bowl on Saturday. That’s a common occurrence.

When the Rainbow Warriors kick off in Honolulu against Middle Tennessee (8 p.m. ET, ESPN), it’ll mark the 11th bowl appearance in program history. It’ll be the seventh appearance in the Hawaii Bowl and the ninth in a bowl in Hawaii, as the Rainbow Warriors also played in the 1989 Aloha Bowl and 1999 Oahu Bowl. Those are now defunct, and the island’s bowl game is the Hawaii Bowl, sponsored by hotel chain Sheraton.

Hawaii had a three-win disaster of a season in 2015, and the Rainbow Warriors made a change. They moved on from Norm Chow and hired Nick Rolovich, an alum and their former offensive coordinator who’d been at Nevada. The Warriors haven’t been perfect in Rolovich’s first year in the head job, but they’ve been a lot better – as six wins and a bowl bid indicates. Now they can close their year on a happy note, in the Hawaii Bowl in Honolulu on Saturday.

Their opponent in that quest is Middle Tennessee, and the Blue Raiders have quietly had another strong year under Rick Stockstill. A victory here would get them to nine wins for the first time since a 10-win campaign in 2009, and they’ve got a few nice victories against Louisiana Tech and Missouri. On paper, they’re better than Hawaii. We’ll see if they can bear that out in a de-facto road game.

Both sides are right. Bowls are a cynical money-making exercise, an excuse for ESPN inventory, and an outdated way for all the wrong people to maintain some semblance of control over college football. They’re also happy, bonus football.

We are at both extremes in 2016. We once again had 80 bowl bids to give out and fewer than 80 bowl-eligible teams, a sure sign of bloat and excess. We’re also loaded with perhaps more interesting bowl matchups than we’ve ever seen.

Bowl games are good. There are too many of them. Both things are true.

We’re holding steady at 41 on this year’s schedule, counting the National Championship, and again have multiple 5-7 teams that made it in because we ran out of 6-6 teams (Mississippi State and North Texas this time).

College football’s bowl season is upon us. A full schedule is here.

There are 40 bowl games spread from Dec. 17 to Jan. 2, with the National Championship on Jan. 9. Unless you’re watching on multiple monitors and are really committed, you won’t catch all of them. (If that is your plan, more power to you.)

Also, head over here for the fully updated bowl season calendar as it fills in, from the New Orleans Bowl through the Rose Bowl. We’ll also add picks, scores, and more to that calendar over time.

College football’s most scenic bowl game is back for another year. This will be the 15th edition of the Hawaii Bowl, which started in 2002 and has persisted as an exotic postseason destination for a couple of bowl-eligible teams every year since then.