Head coach Matt Entz will be making his first trip to Hawai‘i — in what could be Fresno State football’s last.

The Bulldogs open Mountain West play Saturday night in Honolulu. This is the last scheduled meeting between the teams. Fresno State moves to the Pac-12 next year, while Hawai‘i remains in the Mountain West. The schools have no future nonconference games scheduled.

“They are extremely difficult to beat on the island,” Entz said at his weekly news conference Monday.

Fresno State leads the all-time series 30-25-1.

Hawaiian Logistics

The team will leave Thursday, one day earlier than usual for a road game. The team will still get a practice in before they leave. On the island, they will practice at Saint Louis High School.

Entz asked his team what they think of when he said the word “Hawai’i.”

“It’s amazing, no one said football. And so that’s our emphasis this week, is to make sure that we’re thinking about football and not … the beaches, the sand, all the things that you can become distracted with, I’m sure, in what looks like paradise,” Entz said.

The goal is to stay focused on football.

“We identified what all the traps and all the rabbit holes are on this trip so that way there are no excuses. That’s one of our team rules: no excuses. We need to make sure we are focused and detailed, and that we start fast this week,” Entz said.

The team has one non-football excursion planned — a trip to the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center. The actual memorial is closed for preservation work.

Entz is not worried about the 9 p.m. Pacific time (6 p.m. Hawaiian time) start. He called most of his team “night owls.”

But, he is expecting his players to sweat. Humidity is forecast at 80%, Entz said.

“It’s immediately going to feel hotter than what it really is. So hydration is going to be critical,” Entz said.

Aloha, Rainbow Warriors

The Rainbow Warriors are still a practitioner of the run and shoot offense, employing four wide receivers at a time. While that style of offense may be passé elsewhere, it is a staple in Hawaiian high school football culture.

“You’re going to have to stay on top of routes. We’re going to have to be really disciplined with our eyes,” Entz said.

Timmy Chang, Hawaii’s quarterback in the early 2000s, is in his fourth season as the team’s head coach.

Hawaii uses two quarterbacks, Luke Weaver, a righty, and Micah Alejado, a lefty. Entz said that may affect defending the scramble.

Kicking for Hawai’i is the “Tokyo Toe,” Kansei Matsuzawa, a two-time MWC special teams player of the week.

Watching Game Will Not Be Easy

Watching the game on Saturday may pose a challenge. It is a Hawaii-produced broadcast with no local TV or national cable outlet.

The game will be on cable/satellite systems that carry Spectrum SportsNet: AT&T U-verse (SD ch. 777; HD ch. 1777); Charter/Spectrum (SD ch. 215; HD ch. 787); and DirecTV (ch. 691).

The game will be available on the Mountain West app, but apparently only on mobile phones — not on smart TVs or desktop computers — according to Hawaii’s game watching guide.

Bulldog Bites

While substituting Carson Conkling for E.J. Warner was planned for the second drive of the second half of Saturday’s home game against Southern, Entz did not mean for it to happen in the middle of the drive. “There was some miscommunication on the sideline,” he said.

Wide receiver Josiah Freeman is expected back after missing last week to a lower-body injury.

This year, the Mountain West requires injury reports for conference games. “Tell the truth you don’t have to remember what you said. So we’ll put factual information out there,” Entz said.