Pac-10 unlikely to fill their spot in the Hawaii Bowl

About how they hope that the Pac-10 will be able to send a team to the Hawaii Bowl next year, Hawaii Bowl executive director David Matlin said that:
"it will be a challenge." (HA)

HA Note: "The Hawai'i Bowl is scheduled to get the seventh pick of bowl-eligible Pac-10 teams, if the conference qualifies that many for the postseason. This year the Pac-10 was contracted to send its sixth to Hawai'i and seventh to the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego but only managed to field five that were bowl-eligible."

About why the Pac-10 has less bowl-eligible teams lately, Matlin said:
"When they (the Pac-10) went to round-robin scheduling it made it harder to get teams (bowl eligible)." (HA)

HA Note: "When the NCAA approved a 12-game regular season schedule for 2007, the Pac-10 chose to add a league game and go to a nine-game conference schedule rather than have its members pick up an additional non-conference game. The nine other Football Bowl Subdivision conferences all play seven- or eight-game conference schedules."

Hoping that UH and a quality opponent will be in the Hawaii Bowl, ESPN Regional TV VP Pete Derzis said:
"Hopefully, we'll have a Hawai'i team again and I'm confident we'll have a quality opponent for them. But you never know what is going to happen in the business. We didn't get a Pac-10 team this year and it turned out to be a blessing because we were able to get Notre Dame. It (the Irish and UH) was the perfect recipe for success." (HA)

HA Note: "Had Matlin not been able to land the Fighting Irish, UH would have likely been matched against a team from the Mid-American Conference or Conference USA."