DW will have cleats on the ground in Honolulu for the Louisiana Tech (7-5) vs. Hawaii (8-5) cleverly named Hawaii Bowl on Saturday, Dec. 22. (SoFi, a financial consulting bidness, is the corporate sponsor.)

The 9:30 p.m. CST kick time is either fortunate or unfortunate, depending. If DW were watching it in the CST, odds are we would not be able to stay awake until 1 a.m. when it’s likely to finish. But, that’s what DVRs are for!

The kick in Hawaii is at 5:30 p.m. Hawaiian Standard Time; the time difference between Oahu and Ruston is four hours. The Bulldogs will be in Hawaii five nights and will fly back ASAP after the game, so if you’re a Tech fan, you are hoping that the Bulldogs will be asleep in the early morning hours of Sunday, Dec. 23, somewhere high above the Pacific Ocean — with a record of 8-5.

Tech lost three of its final four games, victims of a touch schedule break — drawing a bye after only two games and having to play 10 straight — and just not being mentally tough enough or good enough to maintain inspiration after missing a chance to win Conference USA three week’s before the regular season ended; since Tech lost the C-USA opener to UAB (the eventual league champ), the Bulldogs’ chances of getting to the title game ended when UAB beat Southern Miss in overtime in Birmingham. At the time Tech had just beaten Rice and was 7-3 with only one loss in C-USA and, although with no chance to win the league, the Bulldogs did have a solid chance to win 10 games, something no Bulldog team has done since 1984. But as favorites, the ‘Dogs lost to Southern Miss and to Western Kentucky.

This senior class will finish with 32 or 33 wins, the second most of any other Tech class since the Bulldogs moved to I-A in 1988. (Last year’s class finished with 34: 9 wins, 9 wins, 9 wins, 7 wins.) But losing 4 of the final 5 doesn’t figure to be a favorable memory. It will be interesting to see if the Bulldogs can pull their pride up and buckle in after an uninspired performance to end the regular season. As of now, the program is one of only four in the sport with four straight bowl wins in four straight seasons; that is not even close to being easy.

Five straight bowl wins sounds like a cure for the Loyal Blues.

This class has been a bunch of good soldiers. They have played four bowl games in four years, and the farthest bowl game from Ruston has been a five-hour drive. They’ve won all four. So the Honolulu trip is a sweet reward for the guys, most of whom will never have another real chance or occasion to go to Hawaii.

But Hawaii’s team is good. The Rainbow Warriors can chunk it. Tech can have a really long trip home or can end the season — and the seniors will end their careers — flying high, and we’re not just talking about the trip home.

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