HONOLULU — The Mountain West Conference announced its full 2023 football schedule Thursday with dates for its 12 members.

The MWC did away with the six-team Mountain and West divisions starting this season. Instead, the conference championship game will feature the two teams with the highest winning percentage in league play.

What You Need To Know

  • The full Hawaii football 2023 schedule was announced on Thursday with dates filled in for the Rainbow Warriors' eight Mountain West Conference opponents

  • UH's five-game nonconference portion of the schedule, featuring Vanderbilt and Oregon on the road and Stanford at home, was previously announced

  • The Mountain West opener of head coach Timmy Chang's second season will take place Sept. 30 against UNLV at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas

  • It is the first time that UH will play all four perpetual trophy games in the same season, against Air Force, UNLV, San Jose State and Wyoming

Hawaii, which previously learned its opponents and sites of its MWC games through the 2025 season, now knows the dates of eight conference games this fall for Timmy Chang's second season as head coach.

After a five-game nonconference schedule featuring three Power Five opponents, the Rainbow Warriors will open up the MWC at UNLV on Sept. 30 and, after a bye week, play its first league home game Oct. 14 against San Diego State.

Those are UH’s two “locked” opponents that will appear every year during the MWC’s announced three-year schedule rotation through 2025. All other teams in the conference will appear on the schedule twice over that same period.

The remaining conference home games are San Jose State, featuring the return of ex-UH quarterback Chevan Cordeiro, on Oct. 28; Air Force, in the teams’ first meeting since 2019, on Nov. 11; and Colorado State, which Chang briefly joined before his UH hire, in the season finale Nov. 25.

The road games are New Mexico, which UH hasn’t faced since 2019, on Oct. 21; Nevada, where Chang was an assistant coach for five years, on Nov. 4; and Wyoming, where UH will appear for the third time in four years, on Nov. 18.

Barring a meeting in the Mountain West championship game, 2023 will mark the first time since 1991 that UH and rival Fresno State will not play, breaking a run of 32 straight years of meetings.

It is the first time that UH will play all four of its perpetual trophy games in the same season with SJSU, Wyoming, UNLV and Air Force.

Dates of UH’s nonconference games of 2023 were previously announced. UH opens at Vanderbilt of the SEC in a Week 0 game Aug. 26, then plays host to Stanford of the Pac-12 on Sept. 1 at what is planned to be a freshly expanded Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex.

Home dates against FCS school Albany (Sept. 9) and frequent foe New Mexico State (Sept. 23) are sandwiched around a marquee road game at Oregon (Sept. 16).

Aug. 26 – at Vanderbilt
Sept. 1 – Stanford
Sept. 9 – Albany
Sept. 16 – at Oregon
Sept. 23 – New Mexico State
Sept. 30 – at UNLV*
Oct. 14 – San Diego State*
Oct. 21 – at New Mexico*
Oct. 28 – San Jòse State*
Nov. 4 – at Nevada*
Nov. 11 – Air Force*
Nov. 18 – at Wyoming*
Nov. 25 – Colorado State*

* – Mountain West game

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.