This is the week when the University of Hawai'i pictures and memorabilia that dot Greg McElroy's Dallas-area home spring to eerie life.

When memories of trying on the Rainbow-emblazoned football helmet, green jersey and letterman's jacket of his father, also named Greg, take on a unique focus.

It is something the freshman quarterback will think about as he stands on the opposite sideline Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala., No. 17 in a crimson-and-white Alabama uniform.

That is no small irony in a family where the father, Greg Sr., was a two-year starter on the offensive line for UH (1977-78) and a graduate assistant coach (1979). And, where the mother, Jami, was a cheerleader and 1978 homecoming queen.

"We've laughed about it," said Greg Sr. "When we saw Hawai'i on the schedule, seeing they would open against Hawai'i in his (first game) we knew it was some kind of an omen. I said to myself, 'what were the odds of that?' "

Indeed, they used to crowd the TV, father, mother, son and grandparents, staying up late when they lived in California to root on UH. They cheered UH in bowl games and bemoaned the 0-12 season of 1998.

Back then, it had been the son's dream to someday play for his parents' alma mater. He'd looked over and over at the picture of his father's name displayed on the scoreboard at Aloha Stadium. He'd even check out the facility while on vacation.

While watching Shawn Withy-Allen step in for Tim Chang at quarterback in the 2002 Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl, he could imagine himself playing there.

But when the father, who'd worked in the front office of the Los Angeles Kings and Dodgers in his native Southern California, became vice president of sales and marketing for the Dallas Cowboys in 1998, that dream began to get pushed to the background by a desire to play close to home.

By the time the son was named the state 5-A high school offensive player of the year in Texas for national power Carroll High, any shot the Warriors might have had of landing him as a legacy player, even had they recruited him, was probably gone. A state-record 56 touchdown passes drew recruiters from Michigan to Stanford.

Too bad, too, because the 6-foot-2, 210-pound McElroy played in an imaginative passing offense that could have suited him well at UH.

Seeing storied programs — Florida, LSU, Tennessee and Auburn — on the opposite sideline this year is bound to be a thrill for the youngster. But in the McElroy household there has been no more favored one than the team that will be there Saturday.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.