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Hawai'i

Rainbow Warriors · Mountain West

Head coach Timmy Chang Year 5 with Hawai'i

Season Projection · 2026 W2

10,000 sims
6.8
Expected wins
7-4
Proj record
4 to 10
Win range (90%)
#73 (47–99)
Final rank (90%)
0%
Make playoff
12%
Win conference

Path to Glory

Tap a win or a loss on each pivotal game to see how the playoff probability shifts. Leave any game unset to average across both outcomes.

Make the playoff

0%

Baseline projection.

  • at Arizona State
    Away · Oct 10
  • at Arizona State
    Away · Oct 10
  • at Arizona State
    Away · Oct 10
  • vs UNLV
    Home · Sep 6
  • vs UNLV
    Home · Sep 6

Pivotal games are the 5 with the largest playoff-probability swing, ranked by the model. Math: chained Bayesian log-odds update from the conditional simulation set; gets the directionally right answer but won't perfectly capture cross-game correlations until the full Monte Carlo pipeline lands.

Returning production · 2026

54 score
  • Quarterback 81% (1/4 )
  • Offensive line 67% (12/18 players)
  • Skill (RB/WR/TE) 40% (16/29 )
  • Front 7 (DL/LB) 35% (20/34 )
  • Secondary 32% (11/22 )
  • Special teams 1% (3/6 )

Share of last season's production each unit returns. Higher means more continuity: 70%+ is healthy, 45–70% a normal rebuild, under 45% a major turnover.

Portal additions · 2026

-1.3 rating

20 proven transfers in, carrying the production below from their prior school.

  • Audric Harris WR ← Washington 18 impact
  • DeVon Rice RB ← Kansas State 18 impact
  • Carson Brown WR ← Iowa State 15 impact
  • Joenel Figueroa DB ← West Georgia 15 impact
  • Devin Alves WR ← Virginia Tech 8 impact
  • Caleb Brown DB ← Virginia Tech 7 impact

Impact scores offensive skill additions (QB/RB/WR/TE) — prior-season production normalized within position (100 ≈ a 90th-percentile producer at that spot) and discounted for non-FBS competition, so a top back counts alongside a top quarterback. Defensive and O-line additions count as transfers but aren't box-score measurable, so they carry no impact score. The rating figure is this class's portal contribution vs. the FBS average, capped at ±2.5.

If QB1 is out (Micah Alejado)

GIE projects a 4.9 rating drop and a 19.7pp shift in playoff probability if Hawai'i loses its QB1 for an extended stretch. (n=2 historical samples; pooled across recent seasons.)

Situational efficiency · 2025

FBS percentile rank
  • 3rd-down conversion 44.7% 92th — elite
  • Red-zone TD rate 15.0% 53th — average
  • 4th-down aggression 33.0% 32th — below avg
  • Late & close 6.5 yds/play 83th — strong

Percentile is across all FBS teams with play-by-play data for the season. "Late & close" is yards per play in Q4+ with a one-score margin — a proxy for clutch offensive performance.

Schedule

Full 2026 slate. Tap a row for the matchup breakdown.

Latest Stories

  • Hot Take

    Hawai'i drops 39 ELO points this week

    Hawai'i lost 39 ELO points in one week. That's the swing you see after a close road loss to a Power Conference team—not catastrophic, but a hard reset. The model still projects 6.8 wins. Still possible. Just significantly less forgiving…

  • Analysis

    Hawai'i drops 39 ELO points this week

    Hawai'i opened the 2026 season at 1521 ELO and has dropped to 1482 after a 37-27 loss to Stanford in Week 1—a 39-point swing that reflects not just the defeat but the margin's significance relative to what the model expected.

  • Hot Take

    Hawai'i drops 39 ELO points this week

    Hawai'i lost 39 ELO points in one week. That's not noise—that's the model recalibrating after Stanford beat them 37-27. The expected-win line dropped from 7.6 to 6.8. One road loss and the ceiling moves. This is what happens when your…

  • Analysis

    Hawai'i drops 39 ELO points this week

    Hawai'i's opening loss to Stanford cost the Rainbow Warriors 39 rating points, a sharp single-week drop that reflects both the result and the margin of defeat. The team now sits at an ELO of 1482, down from a preseason projection of…

  • Recap

    Hawai'i: 2025 Week 16 recap

    Hawai'i sits at 9–4 with a rating of 1.7, holding rank 68 in GIE's assessment. The Rainbow Warriors dominated Wyoming 27–7 in Week 14, a decisive home win that underscored their ability to control games against Mountain West competition.…

More coming

Per-team pages get the full treatment in Phase 3: current rating, season projection histogram, schedule with win probabilities, and live overlays on Pylon stream days. For now, this page exists so stories and news have a permanent home as content rolls in.