GAME DAY : For Trojans, It’s Hawaii 0-0 : College football: USC can’t look past a team on an 18-game losing streak as it tries to start quickly.

Time for a new season, and USC wants its first game tonight against Hawaii to bear as little resemblance to its last game as, say, El Paso does to Waikiki.

Finally, a chance to exorcise the demons of the “Stun Bowl” loss to Texas Christian.

It comes with a catch, of course.

Slip up against Hawaii--a team riding the long, slow wave of an 18-game losing streak--and TCU looks like nothing.

“We have to come out and not overlook anybody,” receiver R. Jay Soward said. “Just because they haven’t won in a couple of games doesn’t mean they don’t have athletes.”

OK, so R. Jay was being tactful: It’s a little more than a couple of games. The last time Hawaii won was Oct. 11, 1997, against Fresno State, and the Rainbows lost their final six games that season and all 12 last year.

But some day, some way. . . .

“At some point, that streak is going to be over,” USC Coach Paul Hackett said. “We’ve been in games like this before where we were the favorite and haven’t played as well as we should have.”

He can say that again, and he has, ad nauseam, to the players.

Tailback Chad Morton said the team hears him loud and clear, even over the din of Kalakaua Avenue.

“That’s our primary concern, staying focused,” Morton said. “There are a lot of temptations out here. We’ve got to stay focused, but not get too tense.”

There definitely has been trouble in paradise for the Trojans before.

USC is 3-0 against Hawaii and has outscored the Rainbow Warriors, 111-11.

But USC’s 21-5 victory in Honolulu in 1978 was a lot closer than it sounds--and that was a Trojan team on its way to the national championship.

It’s a game remembered for officiating so lopsided--14 penalties against USC to eight for Hawaii--that USC President John Hubbard drew a penalty for calling an official a name from the sidelines.

Hackett, then a Trojan assistant, called the officiating “almost laughable” at the time.

USC’s lead in the fourth quarter was only 7-5, largely because quarterback Paul McDonald was out with an ankle injury and sat in the press box doing radio commentary--which, coincidentally, is exactly what he’ll be doing today in his second season as USC’s color commentator.

But the Trojans pulled it out after reserve quarterback Rob Preston connected with Vic Rakhshani on a touchdown pass with eight minutes left and linebacker Riki Gray (later Ellison) returned an interception for a touchdown to seal it.

All the trouble hasn’t been against Hawaii, either. The Trojans played Alabama in Aloha Stadium in the 1985 Aloha Bowl and lost, 24-3, managing only 61 yards rushing.

Hackett had a distant brush with a bad moment in Aloha Stadium in 1992, when Pittsburgh lost to Hawaii at the end of Hackett’s last season as coach.

Only thing is, Hackett wasn’t there. He had been fired before the season ended.

“I was long gone,” he said. “I wasn’t any part of the Hawaii thing. I was in Florida fishing for marlin.”

This time, he’s fishing for his long overdue ninth victory as USC’s coach after going 8-5 last season.

June Jones, Hawaii’s new coach, is looking for No. 1 as he brings his run-and-shoot offense back to the islands, where he played for the Rainbows for one season and later began his coaching career with the team.

“We shouldn’t be playing USC in our first game, but there’s a lot of excitement,” Jones said. “There are a lot of games we have a shot at winning.”

USC quarterback Carson Palmer is on record expecting the Trojans to win every one of theirs.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what happens,” Palmer said. “Everybody has worked so hard, and I feel like I am so much more prepared.

“We want to start off right. Come out and explode and not slack off at all.”

The idea is to leave no room for Hawaii to make it a game.

“I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I approach every game the same,” offensive tackle Travis Claridge said. “Whether we line up to play a high school team, I’m going to be ready.”

USC vs. HAWAII

* Time: 9:30 p.m.

* Site: Aloha Stadium, Honolulu

* TV: FSW2

* Radio: XTRA (690), KCTD (1540)