{"id":229947,"date":"2026-02-24T12:50:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=229947"},"modified":"2026-02-24T12:50:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:50:57","slug":"football-2026-matchups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2026\/02\/24\/football-2026-matchups\/","title":{"rendered":"Updated Rainbow Warrior football 2026 matchups announced"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> &lt; 1<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minute<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/manoa-athletics-football-2026-opponents.jpg\" alt=\"graphic with football opponents\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-229948\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/manoa-athletics-football-2026-opponents.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/manoa-athletics-football-2026-opponents-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/manoa-athletics-football-2026-opponents-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Updated conference opponents for the University of <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at <span lang=\"haw\">M&#257;noa<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiiathletics.com\/sports\/football\">football<\/a> team\u2019s 2026 season were announced February 24 by the Mountain West. The new matchups come after the addition of North Dakota State to the league earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>The Rainbow Warriors will host the Bison at Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex in addition to three teams previously scheduled to make the trip to Honolulu in New Mexico, San Jose State and <abbr title=\"University of Nevada Las Vegas\">UNLV<\/abbr>. <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> <span lang=\"haw\">M&#257;noa<\/span> will travel to Nevada, Northern Illinois (<abbr>NIU<\/abbr>), <abbr title=\"University of Texas El Paso\">UTEP<\/abbr> and Wyoming.<\/p>\n<p><abbr>UH<\/abbr> <span lang=\"haw\">M&#257;noa<\/span> will take on all three new members of the Mountain West&#8212;Northern Illinois, North Dakota State and <abbr>UTEP<\/abbr> in 2026. The Rainbow Warriors have never matched up with both <abbr>NIU<\/abbr> and North Dakota State. <abbr>UH<\/abbr> <span lang=\"haw\">M&#257;noa<\/span> and <abbr>UTEP<\/abbr> were longtime rivals in the Western Athletic Conference where the Rainbow Warriors hold an 18-13 series advantage. The teams last met in 2004.<\/p>\n<p><abbr>UH<\/abbr> <span lang=\"haw\">M&#257;noa<\/span>\u2019s 12-game schedule includes six home games and six road games. The Rainbow Warriors\u2019 previously announced non-conference slate includes home games against New Mexico State (September 12), and Massachusetts (November 28) and road games at Stanford (August 29) and Arizona State (September 19).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mountain West Home Games<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>New Mexico<\/li>\n<li>North Dakota State<\/li>\n<li>San Jose State<\/li>\n<li><abbr>UNLV<\/abbr><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Mountain West Away Games<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nevada<\/li>\n<li><abbr>NIU<\/abbr><\/li>\n<li><abbr>UTEP<\/abbr><\/li>\n<li>Wyoming<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><abbr>UH<\/abbr> <span lang=\"haw\">M&#257;noa<\/span>\u2019s 12-game schedule includes six home games and six road games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":229948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1362],"tags":[58,83,9,550],"class_list":["post-229947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-football","tag-uh-manoa","tag-manoa-athletics","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/manoa-athletics-football-2026-opponents.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229947"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229954,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229947\/revisions\/229954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}