As Western Athletic Conference season openers go, Saturday's game in Boise, Idaho, is big potatoes for the University of Hawai'i.

In fact, you could say it has the potential to stack up as the biggest WAC opener for the Warriors since, well, head coach June Jones' first season in Manoa.

The victory over Southern Methodist in the magical season of 1999 pulled the Warriors out of one of their deepest ruts and launched them toward a surprise share of the WAC title. Their last one, as it turned out.

So, if the Warriors have hopes of putting another one next to it sometime soon, this is the week to go about it. For the road to the WAC title of late has run through the smurf turf of Bronco Stadium, where Boise State has won or shared the past four championships. And, where, as the schedule would have it, the Warriors play the WAC's only nationally ranked team, the No. 25 Broncos (3-0) on Saturday. Maybe the last nationally ranked team they'll play until sometime next season.

Lately the WAC has been something of a one-and-done league — especially if the one you lose is the conference opener. Only one of the 11 teams that has won or shared a WAC championship in the seven years since the split of the 16-team conference has lost its league opener. Three times in that span Boise State has run the WAC table at 8-0. So history suggests there might not be a second chance at a WAC title if the first game gets away.

But, then, conference openers of heavy portent haven't rolled around all that often for the Warriors in any case. There was that 6-3 — two Jason Elam field goals — victory at Air Force on Hurricane Iniki day in 1992. That upset got UH off and running toward the 11-2 Holiday Bowl championship season which remains the program's only top 20 finish.

Then, there was 1993 when a fourth-quarter field goal banged off the left up-right at Brigham Young, ending the one-year WAC reign and beginning what would eventually become a slide of six years without a winning record.

The revival of the Warriors in the WAC began with the 20-0 win at SMU, a victory that ended UH's seven-year, 24-game WAC road losing streak and helped inspire the confidence that carried the Warriors to a 9-4 season and O'ahu Bowl victory.

The SMU victory in 1999, coincidentally, came after UH ended the longest run of football frustration in its history, the 19-game Division I-A losing streak.

And, the I-A non-conference victim?

Boise State, 34-29, UH's last win over the Broncos, who have won five in a row.

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