It was good news yesterday that the University of Hawai'i and Washington got around to signing, sealing and delivering on the expectation that they would extend their football series by two games through 2015.

That means, with UH already booked for a 2011 appearance at Husky Stadium as payback for UW coming here in 2007, they'll meet three times in the next six years.

But more eye-opening was UH athletic director Jim Donovan noting in the announcement that "completing our football schedule for the next four, five years (was) ... one of my goals when I was first hired and we now only have a few more openings to fill, and I expect we'll get those done sometime this year."

Both necessities but perhaps only at UH in this day and age would they be so new as concepts that they have to be spelled out. Only in Manoa would completing schedules four or five years in advance of playing them not be a policy long since set in concrete.

Most places where major college football is played this is not only standard operating procedure but an article of faith. You want to talk to Alabama about scheduling, for example, be prepared to bring a 2018 — or later — calendar with you.

Of course there are, from time to time, openings arising when coaches change or somebody, such as Washington State for 2011, wimps out and buys its way from under a future game at Aloha Stadium.

But, as UH learned the hard way under a previous administration when Michigan State opted out, those are more easily dealt with when you have your other pukas already filled. And, maybe, they don't happen at all if you set a high enough cancellation penalty.

What you don't want to have happen is be less than 12 months out from the kickoff of a season while having to scramble to fill three games. Or having to seek help from the WAC and ESPN to do it.

Being leveraged by Charleston Southern for a couple of games just to be able to fill out a schedule, as was the case in 2007, is a sure sign the athletic director hasn't done his homework.

So it is encouraging that Donovan claims he is well on the way to filling out future schedules while doing it with some marquee names. The addition of Army and extensions with Southern California, Washington and Nevada-Las Vegas etc. are promising developments. It is also a step in the right direction that UH is insisting upon $500,000 — or more — cancellation clauses in its contracts.

The disappointing part is that this constitutes breaking new ground.