Before the University of Hawai'i football team can ice a berth in the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl, it must endure the chill of Utah's Logan Canyon.

A victory over Utah State Saturday would ensure a winning regular season for the Warriors (6-2), their requirement for a berth in the Christmas Eve bowl.

Temperatures for Saturday's road game will likely be in the mid-50s for the afternoon kickoff but could dip into the 30s by the fourth quarter.

To which UH running back Nate Ilaoa said: "Real men play in cold weather."

"I'm a real man," said linebacker Adam Leonard, a native of Seattle whose blood type is now warm, "and I prefer to play out here."

When head coach June Jones and defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville were on the same coaching staff in the National Football League, Glanville imposed the "training-camp rule."

When the weather turned cool, Glanville recalled, "you were allowed to wear only what you wore in training camp. If you wore long sleeves in training camp, you could wear long sleeves in Cleveland in November. That rule applied to the coaches, too."

Jones said: "That doesn't hold up for me now. They can wear whatever they want to wear."

Quarterback Colt Brennan, who has lived in Colorado and Boston, said he "loves the cold weather. It's something I did, and became acclimated to. It's football weather."

Jones said the weather won't be a factor because "you're only out there for 60 minutes. We've known we'd have to deal with it since we got the schedule, so we're going to go out and play for 60 minutes, then we'll go to the locker room."

"The way we play offense, the hour is just about the first quarter," Glanville said. "We're not worried about the weather. You never give in to the weather. You never let the opponent be the weather. You ignore the weather. The best way is to shut off all of the heat in the locker room for halftime, so when they come in for halftime, it's warmer outside than it is inside. That's our motto: 'Turn off the heat!' "

Of greater concern is the combination of cool weather and Logan's elevation (4,400 feet above sea level). Jones said the thin air is "not a factor if you're in good shape, but it is a factor if you're not in good shape."

After practices this week, the Warriors have run several sets of 55-yard sprints. During Monday's sprints, assistant coach Rich Miano, who participated in the workout, repeatedly yelled out: "High altitude."

"I think we're in good shape," Jones said, even offering praise to a past target, 250-pound Ilaoa. "He's been in better shape than he's been in for a year. Hopefully, he'll be able to give everything he has."

Ilaoa said: "I feel good. I'll be all right. For a lot of the first-year guys, it'll be, 'Oh, my, why is it so hard to breathe?' But after a while, everybody should be fine."

Offensive line coach Dennis McKnight, who played in Denver's old Mile High Stadium once a year as an NFL player, said overcoming high altitude is a "mindset. I've never been out of breath, short of breath. For whatever reason, the ball goes farther. That's all I've noticed. I've never been tired a day in my life in altitude."

ALAMA-FRANCIS READY