When it dashed out of the Aloha Stadium locker room tunnel and onto the field 30 days ago, the Boise State football team couldn't have been the target of more contempt had it been singularly responsible for rising gas prices and crowded mall parking lots.

Some 47,000 University of Hawai'i partisans booed the blue with all they had, which was enough to shake the aging facility.

Today, the Broncos deserve Hawai'i's most vocal support. They merit being Hawai'i's adopted team. Well, for an afternoon, anyway.

While the Warriors prepare for the Sugar Bowl, the Broncos carry the Western Athletic Conference banner against East Carolina in the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl at 3 p.m.

It is a far cry from hoisting it in the Fiesta Bowl 11 months ago, but the Broncos are doing it with a stiff upper lip and considerable class. It can't be easy returning to the site of perhaps your most painful loss in seven seasons of WAC membership, especially when there are signs and T-shirts as pointed reminders. But the Broncos have managed to put whatever ire they surely feel on the back burner until UH's visit next year and say and do all the right things in the interim.

Boise State even took out a large ad in your favorite newspaper Wednesday proclaiming "Boise State University congratulates the University of Hawai'i" and wishing the Warriors "Good luck" in the Sugar Bowl.

Fact is Boise State hasn't just led the WAC standings for five consecutive seasons, setting a standard of excellence until being dethroned by UH this year, the Broncos — and most of their fans — have also been pacesetters in class and solidarity. Say what we might about Boise State's president who foolishly casts longing eyes at the Mountain West, Broncos' fans have backed the WAC. When the Broncos earned a trip to the Liberty Bowl in 2004 and Fresno State wound up in the Boise-based MPC Computer Bowl, Boise fans still turned out in significant numbers and decibels to back the Bulldogs against Virginia.

The gestures so moved Pat Hill, the usually crusty FSU coach, that he beseeched Bulldog fans to give their Boise counterparts an ovation when the teams met in Fresno.

With the 10-2 Broncos having just played here over Thanksgiving, unfortunately there won't be many of the 2,500 or so Boise State partisans making the trip back for this one. So, it behooves whatever Hawai'i fans who find their way out to Halawa to pick up the slack and stand shoulder to shoulder with the ones who do.

It will be a novel role to be be sure. If not an opportunity to appreciate the wonder of the Broncos' special teams play and, for once, not have to worry about the consequences. It may be only the second time — Boise playing Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl being the other — that Hawai'i has had a keen rooting interest in the Broncos.

Which should serve as another reminder of the thread that links these two best of enemies. Last year Boise State trailblazed the BCS path for the WAC, providing a road map and inspiration for the Warriors' quest. And when UH had knocked off the Broncos here, as the fans stormed the field, it was the Bronco players who first offered the Warriors congratulations. It was Boise State that genuinely wished them well in the Sugar Bowl and urged them to win one for the WAC.

The hope is that Hawai'i can reciprocate today. There will be plenty of time to gripe about blue turf later.

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

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