Hawaii is ready for Fresno State’s raucous environment

FRESNO, Calif. >> The Fresno State football team’s “bone yard” — a mock cemetery where the names of opponents were written on bone-shaped “tombstones” — has been eliminated.

The “Red Mile” path leading the visiting team to Jim Sweeney Field at Valley Children’s Stadium — has been shortened.

But the Red Wave of animated fans remains, and is expected to be boisterous when the Bulldogs play host to Hawaii in this evening’s nationally televised game.

Twenty-two years later, former University of Hawaii kicker Eric Hannum vividly recalls the boos party during a practice on the Fresno State campus in 2000. From the roof top, some members of Delta Sigma Phi roasted the Rainbow Warriors, particularly Hannum, who drained a key field goal in a double-overtime victory a year earlier.

“It was like they knew every single thing about me,” Hannum recalled. “They did a great job of looking in the media books. … They were bringing up what high school we went to, stuff that. It wasn’t like ‘You stink.’ They did their homework.”

Hannum remembered turning to a teammate and saying, “These guys are good. This is good material.”

On game day, Hannum moved his kicking cage to the opposite side of where it was placed in the previous game in Fresno. “But I swear, all those same fans followed me, and continued to shower down their, uh, love and aloha,” Hannum said.

UH head coach Timmy Chang, who has experienced the Fresno State fans’ heckles as an opposing quarterback, has prepared the Warriors for the Mountain West’s most uproarious fans.

“It’s a good environment,” Chang said. “Hostile football down there.”

Of complementary concern is a Fresno State team that has back the league’s best quarterback (Jake Haener), a senior wideout (Josh Kelly) and co-captain (safety Evan Williams). After missing four games because of an ankle injury, Haener rallied the Bulldogs to two touchdowns in a 13-second span in the final 70 seconds of a comeback victory over San Diego State last week. Haener has connected on 72.7% of his passes this year. The Bulldogs are 271⁄2-point favorites.

“They were picked to win the conference,” Chang said of the Bulldogs, who are tied for first in the league’s West Division at 3-1. “Coach (Jeff) Tedford is a great coach. … It’s going to be a tough game to win. We’ve got to be firing on all cylinders to win this game.”

The Bulldogs also will be fired up after losing two in a row to the Warriors. Last year, the Warriors forced six turnovers in a 27-24 comeback victory over the 18th-ranked Bulldogs. Matthew Shipley made the decisive kick.

“Going into that Hawaii game (last year), there was a lot of hype,” Haener said. “There were a lot of high points in the season, and I definitely felt like going into that game, I tried to do too much. I tried to make big plays. I tried to be the hero way too often in that game and it ended up making me make not the best decisions and put the ball in harm’s way. I definitely learned from that. I definitely thought after that game I did a much better job of not trying to make the big play every time and take what’s there, find the checkdowns.”

The Bulldogs also have played better defensively in recent games.

“We have our physical back,” linebacker Levelle Bailey said. “We have our mental back. We have our swag back. We have Evan Williams back. I feel we’re on the right page.”

The Warriors are 2-7 overall and 1-3 in the Mountain West. Their average margin was 4.3 points in their three league losses.