HONOLULU — Hawaii football fans braved the elements to see the Hawaii football team’s season-opening victory against Delaware State last weekend.
They may do so again on Saturday and could set a milestone in the process.
UH is approaching a sellout for the 1:30 p.m. contest against UCLA at the 15,194-seat Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex, an athletic department spokesperson told Spectrum News on Tuesday. With ticket availability dwindling into the hundreds, the school expects to announce a sellout in the coming days, the spokesperson said.
An announced sellout at the Ching Complex would be a first in the two seasons of play in its current seating configuration. UH sold out three games in the 2022 season when the capacity was 9,346.
Potentially complicating matters is Hurricane Gilma, which as of Tuesday afternoon was weaking as a Category 1 east of Hawaii but still on a projected line to bring rain over the islands on Saturday.
Coach Timmy Chang said he was more concerned for residents of the state in the wake of some outages and flooding from Hurricane Hone passing south over the weekend. UH experienced some inclement weather in Saturday's 35-14 win over DSU.
“How lucky are we to get another (storm) system?” Chang said after practice on Tuesday. “It’s part of it. I worry about the things we can control.
“Hopefully it misses us. For a long period of time we were blessed with some really beautiful weather.”
Since the Ching Complex expansion to 15,194 before the 2023 season, the closest UH has come to selling it out was against Stanford in last year’s home opener, when 13,739 tickets were distributed. That game is also the high mark for turnstile attendance, with 12,547. The 10,279 turnstile count for UH-DSU was the third-largest tally to date at the Ching Complex.
Senior slotback Tamatoa Mokiao-Atimalala, who had the first UH score of the season with an 11-yard touchdown pass from Brayden Schager, brushed off concerns about more input from Mother Nature on Saturday.
“Coach Timmy always says it a lot – football don’t care,” Mokiao-Atimalala said. So, the run and shoot, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re still going to be throwing the ball all over the field. … Stick to our identity, keep doing what we do.”
Mokiao-Atimalala will face his little brother and fellow Campbell High alumnus, Titus, on Saturday, though they don’t figure to go head to head on the field as they are both receivers.
A large media contingent is expected to follow UCLA to Honolulu. It will be UCLA's first game as a member of the Big Ten Conference and first game under coach DeShaun Foster.
The CBS broadcast will be the first on network TV from the Ching Complex, and the first network game for UH anywhere since the Rainbow Warriors played at USC in 2012 (FOX). The last network TV game at home was against Fresno State at Aloha Stadium in 2005 (ABC).
The first and last time UCLA played UH in Honolulu was 1939, a 32-7 Bruins win at Old Honolulu Stadium. UCLA is scheduled to return in 2027, a year before the tentative opening season for a new stadium in Halawa.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.