The guffaws can stop here. The brickbats and one-liners, too.

Tonight at 5:05 is the University of Hawai'i's homecoming game against Utah State, and the Aloha Stadium return that is most overdue is that of a Warrior football team that lays on the hits instead of absorbing them. The UH team that wins the line of scrimmage instead of the one that has become a punch line.

It has been a painful eight weeks for the Warriors. And not just because of the mounting injuries. Though, to be sure the accumulated ankles, knees, hamstrings and pinkie fingers have hurt, too.

But we're talking about the insults that have been added to injury. The slings and arrows of public opinion that have turned into a fusillade amid the six-game losing streak.

The jeers from the stands at once-lowly Idaho after a 35-23 defeat were one thing. So, too, the barbs of "bottom of the WAC!" — and worse — hurled at the Warriors in the wake of a 31-21 loss at Nevada last week. All occurring thousands of miles from home.

But the prankster post at Honolulu Police Department headquarters, purporting to be an official police report, that poked fun at UH's unfamiliarity with the goal line in a 2-6 (0-5 WAC) season underlines just how much the Warriors need a win tonight.

Not just for their fans and the athletic department's finances, both of which have suffered with them, but mostly for themselves. And their peace of mind.

Not since the 0-12 season of 1998 tied an NCAA record for futility have the Warriors endured a drought like this one. But there is a difference. The so-called year of the bagel was following four consecutive losing seasons — and just five wins, total, in the preceding two years. It was a dark period in which not much was expected or delivered.

This year there were high hopes of a school-record fourth consecutive bowl game that would affirm the program's stability. Hopes that would be laid to rest by a loss tonight assuring a losing season and heightened questions about instability.

Mostly, though, it comes down to the Warriors knowing — and demonstrating — they can win again after going without one since Sept. 12. Especially here at home where they have lost two games in a row and four in succession over two years against major college opponents.

Utah State, at 2-6 (1-3 WAC), is hardly in the class of any of those tormentors — Cincinnati, Notre Dame, Fresno State and Boise State. Which is yet another reminder of how far the Warriors have fallen since the Aggies, of all people, are two-point favorites on the Las Vegas betting line.

The Warriors can jump back on the winning track for a week tonight. And, off the laugh track.