FRESNO, Calif. — Pat Hill knows you dislike him, his Fresno State football team and probably his bushy Fu Manchu mustache, too.

Vehemently and loudly so.

The Bulldogs' head coach said he has heard your taunts ringing in his ears all the way back to the San Joaquin Valley and felt your fury up and down his spine. He has seen your screaming faces at the locker room tunnel entrance yelling things he wouldn't even repeat to a Western Athletic Conference referee. He said he's felt the beer and debris showers.

And, you know what, Hill said he loves you and your passion.

In fact, Hill thinks you're great, too. Great for the rivalry. Great for the game.

At his campus press conference and on his radio show yesterday, Hill made it sound like there are few other places he'd rather be than a raucous Aloha Stadium on Saturday where he is Public Enemy No. 1, even if the Bulldogs are 1-7 there since joining the WAC.

Good thing, too, because he will be spending his Saturday afternoon surrounded by about 30,000 of you on ABC television in a game his 22nd-ranked Bulldogs (5-1) need as badly as the Warriors (3-4).

Hill maintains Hawai'i's fans scream and heckle because, well, they care. "I think they respect our program but they want to beat our rear ends, which is what it is all about," he said.

Hill, 53, is a throwback coach, a former lineman for whom football is less a game of Xs and Os and more a blood-and-guts confrontation.

He stomps a furious path on the sidelines, waves his red cap like a madman and screams in Dolby sound. And, apparently, he admires those who are likewise inclined.

"I mean, I've had people yell different things at me that probably you wouldn't want repeated," Hill said. "I don't get offended by it. I've had things dropped on me over the stands and things like that before. That's the way it is. At least they are passionate."

Wherever he's been — and Hill said the reception he and his team get at Aloha Stadium compares to what they've received at Kansas State, Texas Tech, Oregon and Boise State on the decibel meter — the taunts don't get under his skin. As a point of pride, you will never see him cower under the verbal barrage — or talk about implements thrown from the stands.

"I've never said anything about some of the things that have happened to me in that stadium," Hill said. "I love that their fans are over the railings in my face after games. That's part of the game."

Especially in Hawai'i where, Hill maintains, "I'm happy. I love the (Hawai'i) fans. My best friend lives in Honolulu. I mean, I like the state of Hawai'i, I grew up with a lot of Polynesian people. I like the University of Hawai'i. I want to beat 'em. Definitely I want to beat 'em."

He knows you want to beat him in the worst way, too.

And, Pat Hill loves you for it.

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