Rating the Hawaii Bowl: Another high-flying island Christmas

Bowls: There are a lot of them. As a public service, the Doc is here to rank each game according to five crucial criteria, with help from the patron saint of the game in question. Today: The Hawaii Bowl!

Teams. Hawaii Warriors (9-3) vs. Tulsa Golden Hurricane (8-4).
Particulars. Dec. 24 (Today), 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Favorite: Hawaii (–10½)
Patron Saint: Late eighteenth/early nineteenth-century monarch Kalani Pai'ea Wohi o Kaleikini Keali'ikui Kamehameha o 'Iolani i Kaiwikapu kaui Ka Liholiho Kunuiakea, also known as Kamehameha the Great, who unified the islands into a Kingdom of Hawaii and formed alliances with colonial powers to preserve its independence throughout his lifetime. As king, he instituted the so-called "Law of the Splintered Paddle," declaring the innocent and defenseless safe from unprovoked attacks, even from local chiefs.

• Locale. Games in Honolulu often seem like the kind of affairs in which order only tacitly applies at the whim of the natives, who at any point could turn on the imposition of a foreign game. Add the time difference, Aloha Stadium's odd architecture, swirling trash and eerie shadows on the artificial turf, the crazy statistics, the home team's menacing haka, tattoos and otherworldly yards of hair, and the drowsiness and/or inebriation of the mainland viewer, and football in Hawaii is the closest thing we have to football on another planet.

• Tradition. The Jeep Aloha Bowl was a lazy Christmas Day treat throughout the nineties until, like a dying star, it erupted in a massive supernova with the addition of the gratuitous Jeep Oahu Bowl from 1998-2000 and ceased to be in 2001. The remaining particles of dust from the dual implosion coalesced into the ConAgra Hawaii Bowl we know and love in 2002; Sheraton took over the mantle in 2003.

    More 2010 Bowl Ratings
  • Dec. 17: New Mexico Bowl
  • Dec. 18: Humanitarian Bowl
  • Dec. 18: New Orleans Bowl
  • Dec. 22: Maaco Bowl Las Vegas
  • Dec. 23: Poinsettia Bowl

The transition allowed it to become an overwhelmingly hometown affair: With tonight's game, Hawaii has played in seven of the nine games since it was revived as the Hawaii Bowl, winning three, after appearing just once in 19 years under the old Aloha banner.

• Swag. Players get a big bag of boring, containing all varieties of "gear": Headphones, Oakley sunglasses, shorts, a t-shirt, a golf shirt, a backpack, beach towels and a calendar. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess, but unless the calendar features photos of women I'm not allowed to link to here, those had better be some awesome sunglasses.

• Sponsors, trophies and other ambiance. This year's halftime show will feature Nohelani Cypriano, an award-winning Hawaiian vocalist "who's traveled the world, from Washington, D.C., to Carnegie Hall … from Hong Kong to Malaysia to Iraq," and won Na Hoku Hanohano Awards for "Best Female Vocalist," and "Contemporary Album of the Year." Her latest release is "Pulelehua, My Precious Butterfly."

There may or may not also be a mascot modeled after a superhero who obtained the power of Tulsa fanaticism while attempting to fix a malfunctioning satellite during a live broadcast. And carries a sword made of lightning.

• This year's match-up. Hawaii claimed a third of the WAC championship and finished the regular season back in the top 25 for the first time since June Jones, Colt Brennan and the record-smashing passing game moved on after a 23-4 run and a trip to the Sugar Bowl in 2006-07, and the strategy was the same in 2010: Bombs away. The Warriors led the nation in passing offense, and joined Boise State as the only attack in the top 10 nationally in both yards and efficiency.

Tulsa can hit the gas, too – the Hurricane were fifth nationally in total offense, and one of only a dozen teams over 2,500 yards both rushing and passing – but most of the time, that because it really, really needed it: The defense was lit up for at least 400 yards in eight different games, most of them coming through the air, including a 574-yard, eight-touchdown barrage by the nation's No. 2 passing attack, Oklahoma State, in a 65-26 incineration in September.

Hawaii, on the other hand, held opponents under 300 total yards in six of its ten wins, and didn't allow 400 in any of them. The Warriors also won their last six on the island after lighting up USC's secondary in a shootout loss on opening night – most notably, a convincing midseason takedown of Nevada, the Wolf Pack's only loss of the year. Hence, the double-digit point spread.

• Star power. Warrior quarterback Bryant Moniz topped all passers nationally in yards, yards per game and touchdowns, with a 1,000-yard rusher (Alex Green) in the backfield and a quartet of receivers (Greg Salas, Kealoha Pilares and Royce Pollard) who combined for 3,753 yards and 33 touchdowns on 250 receptions.

But the most dynamic player on the field will be Tulsa receiver/return man Damaris Johnson, who easily led the nation in all-purpose yards for the second year in a row and needs just 295 to break the NCAA's career record. If it doesn't fall tonight, that's OK: Johnson's only a junior, so it will go down in next fall's season opener, at the latest.

Final rating: out of five.
Two top-10 offenses, at least one demonstrably bad secondary and the most prolific all-purpose player in major college history, in Hawaii. If your family's not fireworks enough on Christmas Eve, they've got you covered.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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