Sheraton Hawaiʻi Bowl on Christmas Eve features Maui connections for both Hawai’i and Cal teams

When the 8-4 University of Hawai’i takes the field Wednesday against 7-5 California in the Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl on Oʻahu, it might be the last football game for former Maui high school star and current Rainbow Warriors starting wide receiver Karsyn Pupunu.

Then again, it might not. 

“I feel like this is the rainbow at the end of the rain,” Pupunu said. “I’ve been through the storm; this team has been through a lot.”

Pupunu, a 2020 Kamehameha Schools Maui graduate, is working with the UH Athletic Department on an appeal to receive a medical hardship for a season he missed due to a severe kidney illness due to complications after a bout with strep throat in 2021. It was the first year he spent in Mānoa after a year at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, where he did not play football.

“I haven’t heard back from the (NCAA) eligibility center yet, but we just started working on that in the past couple weeks, so hopefully I can get that year back,” Pupunu said. 

But today, all he is thinking about is playing in the Hawai’i Bowl, which takes place at 3 p.m. at the T.C. Ching Athletics Complex and will be televised on ESPN.

It is fitting that Pupunu, one of the few players who has been on the Hawai’i roster since before head coach Timmy Chang arrived in 2022, will experience the first bowl game that the Rainbow Warriors have played in since 2020 when they beat Houston 28-14 in the New Mexico Bowl.

UH earned a bid to its hometown bowl in 2021, but were forced to withdraw due to COVID issues within the program.

The only other player from Maui on the current UH roster, 2024 Kamehameha Maui graduate Frank Kahoa Abreu, is a tight end who has played in three games this season on special teams. Abreu can play today and still maintain his redshirt year that does not count as a used season of eligibility.

Abreu grey-shirted last season at UH, attending school with the promise of a scholarship but not being on the roster. He was 6-foot-2, 200 pounds when he left Kamehameha Maui and now is 6-4, 235.

“It’s just been hard adjusting to the speed of everything,” Abreu said. “You got to make your sacrifices sometimes. You see all your friends going home for breaks and we’re still here. We got to train and all that.”

But Abreu said he “signed up for this when I first started playing at 5 years old. That was always my dream. And so I’m just grateful to be in this place. … It’s a great experience and I wouldn’t change it for the world, man.”

Pupunu has mentored Abreu from the beginning. Abreu also follows the progress of fellow Kamehameha Maui graduate Kapena Gushiken, who is a starting safety at Mississippi, which is now in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoffs and will play Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 2026.

“It’s inspirational, honestly,” Abreu said. “I see Karsyn. I see Gushiken at Ole Miss. Like, you see all that. You see those guys starting in D1 football games and they come from a small high school on Maui. My graduating class was like 130 people. You just don’t see that a lot.”

Pupunu’s path at UH has mirrored that of the coaching staff led by Chang, who is in his fourth year at the helm.

Pupunu played in 11 games in 2022, but did not record a statistic of any kind in Chang’s first season when the Rainbow Warriors finished 3-10. In 2023 when the ‘Bows were 5-8, Pupunu appeared in all 13 games, started three times at wide receiver, with five catches for 71 yards. In 2024, Pupunu played in all 12 games as a wide receiver and caught eight passes for 80 yards.

In his first three seasons, Pupunu was an academic All-Mountain West Conference selection.

He was awarded a scholarship in December 2024. This season as a starter, he has 30 receptions for 256 yards. His receptions are fifth most on the team and his receiving yards are fourth best.

Pupunu celebrated senior night on Nov. 29 after a 27-7 victory over Wyoming with his parents Kolo and Michele Pupunu of Lahaina in attendance. 

He always plays with four family members on his mind — two cousins, an aunt and an uncle who died in the Lahaina wildfire on Aug. 8, 2023.

Pupunu has helped set a tone for the Warriors’ future and hopes to be part of it again in 2026.

“Coach Chang came in and our first couple years, we had our struggles, we hit adversity, but as time went on, a lot of players stayed here and trusted the process, trusted the coaches and just stayed the course,” Pupunu said. “And I feel like this year is a reflection of how much we’ve grown a lot as a team, making this bowl game.”

Chang, also a former player for the Warriors, played in two Hawai’i Bowls, wins over Houston in 2003 and Alabama-Birmingham in 2004.

His team will be facing Cal, which is led by interim head coach Nick Rolovich, Chang’s former teammate at UH.

The pre-game news conference on Monday morning featured Chang, Rolovich and two local players from each team — UH team captains, offensive lineman Zhen Sotelo and safety Peter Manuma, and Cal quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele and safety Aiden Manutai.

“I just want to thank the Hawaiʻi Bowl, the state of Hawaiʻi, for putting on a first-class bowl experience for our team and both teams. We’re truly grateful to be here playing this game,” Chang said . “As you can see, it’s a table full of local boys, and it’s pretty special.”

Chang added, “We look forward to playing a great game and showing the world on Christmas Eve how great this game is.”

Pupunu knows it will be a hard-fought game with all of the local connections.

“This is going to be a really good game, watching the film,” Pupunu said. “Looking back at the old years and seeing what Coach Rolovich has done for this university and how we want to go out there this coming week and just play our best game to represent Hawaii.”

Cal averages 270 yards per game via the pass and just 76 yards per game running the ball. The Golden Bears score 24.83 points per game and give up 26.5.

Behind redshirt freshman quarterback Micah Alejado, the Rainbow Warriors average 28.5 points per game and give up 23.5. Hawai’i passes for 290 yards per game in the run-and-shoot offense and run for 104 yards per game.

As teammates at UH in 2000 and 2001, Rolovich took over the starting quarterback spot from a young Chang when Chang got hurt three games into the 2001 season. The Rainbow Warriors were denied a bowl spot after a 9-3 season in 2001, leading to the creation of the Hawai’i Bowl in 2002 to make sure UH had a place to go bowling when eligible with six or more wins.

“There’s so many things that I learned from Rolo,” Chang said. “We went from being roommates on the road and being friends to now where we are today in our careers. It’s truly humbling to be in this bowl game.”

Rolovich met his wife Analea, a 1996 Seabury Hall graduate, at UH. He coached in Mānoa for 12 years, from 2008 to 2019, the final four seasons at head coach with a 28-27 record for the Rainbow Warriors.

Nick Rolovich was hired as a senior offensive assistant at Cal in December 2024 by then-head coach Justin Wilcox. Upon Wilcox’s firing on November 23, 2025, after a 31-10 loss to rival Stanford dropped the Golden Bears to 6-5, Cal general manager Ron Rivera announced Rolovich would be the interim head coach for Cal’s last home game against SMU and its bowl game. The Bears beat SMU 38-35 on Nov. 29.

Tosh Lupoi takes over as head coach next season, but Rolovich will remain on the Cal staff as associate head coach.

Rolovich said he always has Maui on his mind.

“A couple of my kids went to Kula Elementary for a semester,” Rolovich said. “We’ll be able to get to Maui for Christmas, which is an added bonus for my wife and family. Getting back to go home for her and being close to her family during the holidays is important. And she’s been to this game when we were with UH a few times.”

Rolovich was 2-1 as a head coach for Hawai’i in the Hawai’i Bowl, beating Middle Tennessee in 2016 and Brigham Young in 2019, while losing to Louisiana Tech in 2018.

“It’s the best bowl game I’ve ever been a part of,” Rolovich said. “Just the way it’s set up, the way they get treated, the overall experience, the cultural enlightenment that can happen … especially with having local boys on our team letting everybody know, ‘Hey, don’t do this. Don’t do that. You can do this. This is what that means. Try this food.’ All those things are great learning lessons just for humans. And Hawai’i is such a melting pot of aloha. … I hope it’s enlightening for a bunch of our guys.”