If the University of Hawai'i football team runs the table on its opposition the way a lot of us think the Warriors can, chances are you will be hearing plenty about the 1992 team as well.

Sort of like the way Tim Chang's assault on the NCAA career passing yardage record two years ago brought both Ty Detmer and Mark Hermann back into the spotlight for a bow.

In this case, it was the '92 team that set the bar for a lot of what these Warriors, currently at 5-2 with six regular-season games and the likelihood of a Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl appearance, have a mathematical shot at matching or surpassing. Including the school-record 11-win season and Top 20 finish in the polls.

You hope one by-product of the Warriors chasing history turns out to be not only the recognition of that 11-2 1992 team but a long-overdue appreciation of the accomplishments of its head coach, Bob Wagner.

Indeed, UH's Circle of Honor selection committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow to vote on the 2007 class of inductees and Wagner should join those whose plaques hang in the Stan Sheriff Center.

Already eight former UH football coaches, from Otto Klum to Dick Tomey, are enshrined there. It makes sense that the man who took UH to its winningest season against an all-collegiate schedule and only Top 20 finish in the polls should be there, too.

In a nine-year run as head coach, Wagner took UH to its first NCAA bowl (1989), its first bowl victory (1992) and, in what is more cherished in a lot of people's minds, saw to the demolition of Brigham Young's decade of dominance with back-to-back blowout victories in 1989 and '90. All this coming after a decade as a UH assistant coach under Tomey.

It was Wagner, knowing well the years of frustration against BYU, who came up with the antidote. He imported the spread offense and the man who masterminded it, Paul Johnson. Together, they gave UH a fighting — and scoring — chance against the Cougars whose initials then stood for Big Yardage Unlimited or, as some put it, Beat You Unmercifully. Three times in Wagner's tenure UH beat BYU — and only one of them was even close.

These days when people talk about how UH is regaining its reputation for a hard-hitting defense, Wagner's era as defensive coordinator is one of the periods (1983-1986) they hold up as an example of hard hitting and big-playing making.

Yet for all this, Wagner's departure at a funeral-like press conference was one of the most shamefully handled in school history. Right up — or down — there with the firing of basketball coach Red Rocha at a post-season awards banquet.

Wagner's body of work says he deserves a place in the Circle of Honor. The chance to make amends for the way UH showed him the door says his enshrinement should be sooner than later.

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