Yesterday's practice, the last for the University of Hawai'i football team on its campus before Saturday's season opener at Alabama, ended without the dancing of the haka.

Or the shaking of the shaka.

"It's all business now," wideout Jason Rivers said. "We've only got one thing on our minds, and that's Alabama."

Head coach June Jones, trying on his game face four days early, said: "They know what's expected of them."

This is the first time the Warriors are opening on the road since 1992, the year they went 11-2, and seven seasons before Jones was named UH's head coach.

"Everybody's hyped," Rivers said. "It doesn't matter if it's at home or on the road. It's the first game of the season, so it's going to be exciting for us. We've been waiting for this for a long time."

The Warriors usually leave three days in advance for games played east of the Mountain time zone.

"We are leaving a day earlier this year only because it's earlier in the school year," Jones said.

The players attended their classes yesterday, then met at 2 for the bus ride to the airport. The Warriors were scheduled to leave yesterday evening on a non-stop flight to Atlanta, where they will spend two nights.

Jones said his preference would have been to stay the entire trip in Birmingham, Ala., a 45-minute drive from the Crimson Tide's Tuscaloosa campus. But there are no non-stop flights from Honolulu to Birmingham.

"We would have had to fly all night, then sit in an airport (in Chicago or Atlanta) for two or three hours, then fly to Birmingham," Jones said. "When you fly all night, you want to go straight to the hotel and sleep. I didn't want to take them off a plane, make them wait around for two or three hours, and then go on another plane. That would make the trip five hours longer."

Instead, the Warriors will stay in downtown Atlanta, a 10-minute walk to Georgia Tech's campus. Jones worked out a deal for the Warriors to practice tonight and tomorrow night at Georgia Tech's football facility. Georgia Tech's head trainer worked for the Atlanta Falcons when Jones was the team's head coach.

Jones said he has scheduled sleeping times for his players. "Traveling this many time zones really messes you up," he said.

On Friday morning, the Warriors will drive to Birmingham, where they will spend two nights. The Warriors have a walk-through practice Friday afternoon at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

"We want to give them a little feel for it," Jones said.

After much tinkering, Jones managed to trim the travel roster to 60, UH's self-imposed limit.

The Warriors took 24 players on offense, 33 on defense, and punter Kurt Milne, kicker Daniel Kelly and long-snapper Jake Ingram.

Thirteen defensive backs, 11 linebackers and nine defensive linemen made the trip.

All of the offensive players have spent at least a year in the program. On defense, there are seven first-year Warriors — defensive end David Veikune, inside linebacker Blaze Soares and defensive backs C.J. Hawthorne, Gerard Lewis, Myron Newberry, Jake Patek and Spencer Smith.

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