It's probably at least an hour faster to fly from Honolulu to Chicago than it is from Chicago to Honolulu because of the direction the air moves. When I've flown to Vegas and Denver it's always about 30 minutes faster coming back.It makes total sense for Northern Illinois and Hawaii to be football conference opponents.
Do you think it's quicker to fly west or east from DeKalb to Hawaii?
I know your question was a joke, but there's some useless information that you may not have known .