Brett McMurphy of On3 examined how Group of Five teams perform the next week against Football Bowl Subdivision opponents after beating a team from a power conference. Arizona hosts Hawaii on Saturday night, a week after the Rainbow Warriors beat Stanford.
Group of Five teams that defeated a power conference opponent and played an FBS team the following week had one win and four losses in 2024 according to McMurphy. Hawaii is 2-15 on the road in their last three seasons.
After losing all six of their road games in 2022, Hawaii lost its first four in 2023 before ending their 10 game streak of losses on the United States mainland with a 27-14 win at Nevada. The win over Nevada was the first on the road for Hawaii head coach Timmy Chang, who was a Wolfpack assistant from 2017-2021.
The only road win for Hawaii in 2024 was a 21-20 victory at Fresno State. Hawaii has not won two road games in the same season since 2021. Travelling for the Hawaii football program is more difficult than other programs. Hawaii will travel 2,967 miles to Tucson to play Arizona on Saturday.
Hawaii is playing consecutive power conference opponents for the first time since 2023. Vanderbilt beat Hawaii 35-28 in Nashville in the 2023 season opener. Hawaii lost 37-24 to Stanford a week later. After a 31-20 win over Football Championship Subdivision Albany in the following week, Hawaii lost 55-10 at Oregon.
Hawaii enters the game on Saturday with 16 consecutive road losses to power conference opponents. The last road win for Hawaii against a power conference opponent was a 38-20 victory at Washington State in 2009. Hawaii has not beaten a current power conference opponent on the road since a 24-21 win at Oregon in 1992.
McMurphy is confident "Arizona will be one of the nation’s most improved teams in Brent Brennan’s second season and the Wildcats’ offense should have plenty of firepower to wear down the fiesty undersized Rainbow Warriors." Hawaii's history on the road should trend well for Arizona on Saturday.