"One of the most bitter losses in recent Bulldog history happened in Hawai'i's last visit to Bulldog Stadium." — This week's Fresno State news release.

FRESNO, Calif. — Few college football teams are as big on symbolism as Fresno State.

It awards linemen construction hard hats for a job well done. The end zone in Bulldog Stadium is painted in a checkerboard pattern a la a Purina Dog Chow bag because, as coaches like to say, that's where these 'Dogs eat.

A "bone yard" at the side of Bulldog Stadium pays tribute to significant victories with white bone markers. And the Bulldogs raise a victory flag at practice the week after a win.

But the University of Hawai'i football team that plays here Saturday is a symbol of another type. One these Bulldogs and their fans take no pride in and want, coming up on the two-year anniversary, to provide a "payback" for the painful reminder.

The Warriors provide a vivid memory of the worst day in the 26-year history of Bulldog Stadium, the 68-37 blitzing of Fresno State in 2006.

"They came into our stadium and (put) a shellacking on us — and we all remember it well," head coach Pat Hill said.

It was bad enough that UH rolled up 570 total yards, put in the subs early and slapped the most points on the Bulldogs of any visitor to the stadium. But the loss also underlined what a disappointment the (4-8) 2006 season was as a whole. It was one of the few times in Hill's now-12-year tenure that the Bulldogs under-performed. Just plain folded, really.

A team that had four seniors drafted by NFL teams — a statistic that still causes Hill and FSU fans to shake their heads — lost at Utah State and was never in the game against UH. It got so bad that October day of the Warriors' visit that the homecoming crowd of 39,122 was long gone — presumably to the Fresno Country Fair — with their Thunderstix before the final gun. But not before some of them had donned paper bags on their heads by the 42-17 halftime. "We ran into a buzzsaw," Hill said later.

This just a few short months after many of the same Bulldogs had nearly beaten Southern California in the Coliseum.

When UH players left the field in triumph, some of them cupped their ears to the emptying stands as if to ask the Western Athletic Conference's most vociferous fans, where all the noise went. Worse yet, to Fresno sensibilities, the Warriors did, as one fan put it, "that crazy dance of theirs (the haka) on our field."

And Bulldogs, like elephants, apparently do not forget.

Not in Fresno, anyway.

"I don't think we should beat Hawai'i, I think we should embarrass them," KFIG radio talk show host Kelly Carr said yesterday in calling for a 100-point game. He dedicated a lively, venom-filled segment to how the Bulldogs could issue the most appropriate "payback."

Tom Brandstater was the Bulldogs' starting sophomore quarterback in 2006, sent to the bench in the rout. He also remembers. "When we do beat 'em on our field, yeah, we're gonna kinda smile a little bit and remember this is for what you did to us two years ago," Brandstater said yesterday on the ESPN 1430 "Paul Swearengin Morning Show."

The Bulldogs are 22-point favorites and, apparently, looking to make a bigger point.

"So, there's a little bit (of revenge) in there," Brandstater said.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.