It is time for last call for the University of Hawai'i football team.

Not for tailgate alcohol, although that could be ending soon, too.

Rather, today is the Warriors' last shot at beating a nationally ranked team for a while or even an opponent that will finish the season with a winning record.

When you're 4-6, with no chance for a winning season or a bowl, that's as close as you can get to slapping an exclamation point on this season. When your victims this year have a collective 6-35 record, this is something you need to point to.

In the 24th-ranked Wisconsin Badgers (8-3), the Warriors have an opponent that represents the potential for making something of a splash in a nationally shown ESPN2 game at 4:05 p.m. today.

Remarkably so since the Warriors are but six-point underdogs on several Las Vegas betting lines.

That they were 36-point underdogs to Southern California and 11 points to Fresno State underlines just how golden this opportunity can be.

With only a mediocre 5-6 San Diego State next week left on the schedule, the Badgers stand as UH's last chance for a win of import in this season. Their last opportunity, too, this year to beat a team that will have a winning record.

It has been almost four years since UH last knocked off a ranked team, No. 9 Brigham Young in a 2001 finale that, at the time, seemed to herald bigger and better things. Since then, however, while UH has had its openings, it has lost six in a row to ranked teams.

If the Warriors don't get this one, you wonder when they will bag another trophy game. At this point, all their best hopes for next year figure to be on the road. At Tuscaloosa, Ala., Fresno, Calif., and, possibly, Boise State. Not exactly the places you'd bet the house on pulling an ambush in 2006.

So, if there is an upset to be sprung this might be as good as it gets for a while. Indeed, several of the elements are in place for the well-rested Warriors, whose coaches have had an extra week to prepare for a Badger team that stumbles in here with a surprising degree of vulnerability after back-to-back losses and an open date.

It should tell you something when the Badgers couldn't even send their head coach of 16 years, Barry Alvarez, out on a winning note in his home finale two weeks ago in a 20-10 loss to Iowa.

It also suggests their bread-and-butter running game has a little mold on it since, over the past two games, the Badgers have managed but 99 yards on 50 rushing attempts (minus sack yardage).

At this point, the Badgers, who got an extra $50,000 from ESPN to move the game to today, got UH to agree to the demand for Pac-10 officials for the game and came out on Tuesday, might be happy just to thaw out in the sun and contemplate the possibility of more of it in the Jan. 2 Capital One Bowl in Orlando, Fla.

Meanwhile, if the Warriors, with what could be their biggest home crowd since the season opener with USC, have a finishing kick in them, this is the day to show it.

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