It was 117 points and two victories ago that the University of Hawai'i football team last played in front of the home crowd at Aloha Stadium.

Well, what fans there were, anyway.

And, that's been the continuing problem. The Warriors haven't cracked the 30,000-mark at the Halawa turnstiles since the 2005 season opener's sellout for Southern California, 10 home games ago.

Now that they come home at 5-2 (3-1 in the Western Athletic Conference), fresh off only the second sweep of back-to-back road games in their 28-year WAC history, you wonder if that will change for Saturday's game with Idaho. Will the nearly point-a-minute production on the road bring out the fringe fans, the wait-and-see element, the frustrated and fed-up and the just plain curious that have been missing?

You would hope so because this might be the most explosive team the Warriors have had. It is an offense that is a threat to score on any play and from anywhere. The defense, too, has become big-play oriented. Even if sometimes in more ways than you'd like.

Still, winning on the road has traditionally been the best of sales pitches for UH sports teams, a hard-earned stamp of validation for those who have proven their mettle across time zones. And these Warriors have done a pretty good job of that this month. Never mind that Fresno State and New Mexico State are a combined 3-11 this season, winning in Bulldog Stadium and in the Mountain Time Zone has never come easy for UH teams. Usually it hasn't come at all.

But this year's team has managed to do it and do it with a flourish. It has lit up road scoreboards as well as opposing ball-carriers with regularity. Even its losses at Alabama and Boise State have been competitive and entertaining. What blowing out there has been has been done by the Warriors.

Yet, to this point, winning back the crowds has proven more difficult than attacking a two-deep zone. Overcoming a Brand X home schedule, a scarcity of parking, residual complaints about premium seating, logos, pay-per-view options and all the rest have proven a bigger challenge than elevation.

The thing is, you know UH fans are out there. Their presence and passion are confirmed on radio call-in shows, the internet and at the water cooler where there is a buzz. On game day, however, many of them apparently are tailgating at home and elsewhere. They are crowding around TV sets. They just haven't found their way into Aloha Stadium in once-upon-a-time numbers.

"We have a great football team that can excite people and we're going to try to win this thing out," quarterback Colt Brennan promised. "So, I'd definitely get there."

Over the past two weeks the Warriors have stolen the show in homecoming festivities at Fresno State and New Mexico State. Now that the Warriors' homecoming has arrived for this week, you wonder how many of their fans will come home?

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