Two weeks ago the University of Hawai'i football team played before the largest crowd in school history, a rousing, crimson-clad 92,138 at Alabama.

Come Saturday night at Aloha Stadium, we're told there could be a puka-dotted gathering of less than 30,000.

Toto, we're not in Tuscaloosa anymore.

Talk about one Halawa quick turnaround.

Stadium officials said 21,500 tickets had been sold through yesterday afternoon and with hoped-for strong walk-up sales, the forecast was for a turnout in the upper 20,000s.

Now, nobody expected 50,000 for a home opener against Nevada-Las Vegas. And while the opponent isn't exactly defending national Southern California like last year, it is hardly Division I-AA Appalachian State, either. Of course, Appalachian drew 36,844 in the season opener three years ago.

Which should give considerable pause for thought because this is not a home opener lacking a buzz. This is not some rebuilding Warrior team of the Fred vonAppen era lining up for another in a series of anticipated poundings. It is a team that might be as offensively blessed of talent as any UH has put on the field with proven and emerging stars.

Yet, if the forecasts are correct and a hoard of 11th-hour ticket buyers doesn't materialize at the box office, this could very well be the lightest attended home opener in nearly 30 years at Aloha Stadium. A sobering thought, indeed.

For months now UH has hurled its promotional resources at propping up its declining season ticket base. It has frozen premium seating prices, tacking on an eighth home game for the price of last year's seven games. It has offered online purchase, transfer and incentive options. All apparently unable to put the brakes on a plunge in season ticket sales to what could be a quarter-century, sub-20,000 subscriber low.

The thing is people are still talking about UH football. Passionately so. They are eating it up online, in print and on talk radio. They apparently just aren't lining up to buy tickets to be there watching it from the stands this fall.

Which, if the numbers don't pick up, would further underline what has become increasingly apparent: that UH has made it altogether too easy to do it from somewhere else. Or, not at all.

Too convenient to avoid the ticket surcharges, traffic tie-ups, rowdies in the aisles, choice of music and all the other frequently cited complaints by watching it from the comfort of the living room, the brother-in-law's garage, or a neighborhood sports bar. For that is what fans would be saying by their conspicuous absence.

Now, UH will maintain that while it would prefer to have paying customers in the stands, their money is just as good and the bottom line just as satisfied if it flows through an alternate revenue stream.

But an Aloha Stadium that is half empty for the home opener would seem to shout otherwise.

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