The Hawaii Warriors and Rice Owls have agreed to schedule a home-and-home in 2014 and 2018. The first contest will be played at Rice Stadium in Houston on Oct. 4, 2014, and the game in Hawaii will be sometime in the 2018 season.
This game came about because Rice needed to replace New Mexico State who had to drop their game because of their transition to the Sun Belt. Hawaii will be taking advantage of the Hawaii exemption and will now be playing 13 games in 2014.
The rest of the non-conference games for Hawaii have them hosting Washington, Oregon State, and Northern Iowa; then traveling to Hawaii. The Mountain West schedule has not been announced for the dates but the teams and location is known. Hawaii will be hosting Nevada, UNLV, Utah State, and Wyoming and visiting Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and San Jose State.
The addition or Rice means that Hawaii now needs to get to seven wins if they are going to go to a bowl in 2014. Rice is no pushover as they are the defending Conference USA champs and won 10 games in 2013; while Hawaii won just a single game in 2013.