By Jason Kaneshiro

Hawaii and USC officially announced a two-game home-and-home series and a date change for their 2010 game.
The 2010 game was moved to Thursday, Sept. 2 to accommodate ESPN, which will televise the contest. Kickoff is set for 5:30 p.m.
The Warriors and Trojans meet again on Sept. 1, 2012 in Los Angeles and Aug. 31, 2013 in Honolulu.
“I’m very pleased that we’re able to extend this series with the University of Southern California,” UH athletic director Jim Donovan said in a release. “This series is positive for us because USC has always been a perennial Top 10 team and the fact that playing in Southern California appeals to our West Coast fans and alumni and is an area we heavily recruit.”
Donovan said moving the 2010 game to Thursday gives UH extra travel days before a two-game road trip to Army and Colorado.
“In addition to being able to play on national television, which is important for our program, we’ll have extra days to prepare for the Army/Colorado road trip,” Donovan said. “We won’t run into problems about not having enough practice days due to the long flight to New York.”

Coaches’ quotes from today’s release:
Hawaii’s Greg McMackin: “We’re really excited about this series and for the opportunity to play a perennial national championship contender. It’ll be good for our fans to be able to see us play one of the top teams in the country which will be an indication of where our program is at. Also it’s an opportunity to play a West Coast team, where the travel won’t be too hard. Our fans on the mainland will get a chance to see us play in person and it’ll really help us recruiting-wise.”

USC’s Pete Carroll: “We’re excited to be able to add some more games against Hawaii to our schedule. It’s a great way for us to open our seasons in 2012 and 2013. This is a match up of two fine programs that have a history dating back nearly 80 years.
“I know our players and fans enjoy traveling to Honolulu for the game, and we get good crowd support from the many Trojan fans living in Hawaii who get to see us play. And it works out well for Hawaii coming to the Coliseum, because they have such a strong fan base in Southern California.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 9:56 am and is filed under UH Football, UH Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.