Arizona head coach Brent Brennan stated he has known Hawaii head coach Timmy Chang since the latter was a junior in high school. Brennan was a graduate assistant at Hawaii in 1998. Chang was a legendary quarterback for Hawaii out of Honolulu St. Louis.
Chang holds the Hawaii program record with 17,072 passing yards and is second with 117 career touchdown passes. Brennan's late cousin Colt Brennan has the Hawaii program record with 131 TD passes and is first with 14,193 passing yards.
Brennan and Chang coached against each other twice as head coaches when the former was at San Jose State. Brennan and Chang also coached against each other when the latter was an assistant coach at Nevada from 2017 through 2021.
Throughout their careers as assistant and head coaches, Brennan and Chang have faced each other 15 times. Brennan and San Jose State defeated Chang and Hawaii in 2022 and 2023 during his final two seasons with the Spartans.
"We really have a tremendous amount of respect for Hawaii football, the state of Hawaii, Timmy Chang, I've known him forever. I've known him since he was a, I think, a junior in high school. I was a graduate assistant at the University of Hawaii...He was such a good player and I followed his coaching career. We are friends. We stay close. We talk about stuff from time to time and I was really, really impressed with their win last weekend over Stanford."Arizona head coach Brent Brennan
Hawaii is 14-25 in three-plus seasons under Chang as the head coach. The Rainbows have improved each season under Chang. After finishing with three wins and 10 losses in 2022, Hawaii was 5-8 in 2023 and 5-7 in 2024. Hawaii beat Stanford 23-20 in their week zero season opener.
Arizona is playing Hawaii for the first time since 2019. Arizona has five wins and one loss in their series with Hawaii. Hawaii beat Arizona 45-38 in their last meeting in 2019. This is the first time Arizona will host Hawaii since a 47-28 win during the 2016 season.