So we’re four games into Chow Time and some already say it’s Ciao Time.

The pragmatists know — or now realize — that Norm Chow took the University of Hawaii football head coaching job facing a reclamation project. A major one.

Chow has a three-year contract, and he may need every game up to the end of 2014 to build the kind of team that can "chase championships" as he promised to do in his introductory speech last December.

But patience and rational thinking are not prerequisites for sports fandom. Some of the townspeople, the ones who aren’t very bright, are already searching for the pitchforks and torches one month into Season 1.

That’s what being outscored 165-34 by three of your first four opponents will bring you.

There were those who expected miracles right off the bat from Chow, and there were those who will tell you now this is exactly what they thought would happen. I admit my 6-6 prediction was wildly optimistic, basically ignoring the team’s depth issue. But I still have high hopes for Chow because he’s in the process of building a foundation, and that takes time.

When you do anything with a fairly visible public profile for 40-something years, like Chow has, you build up a support base. But you also amass detractors. This is regardless of how good you are at it. And it’s especially true in coaching.

That leads to a lot of "See, I told you so" when the new coach is 1-3, and that lone win is against something called Lamar.

Another factor is that younger UH fans are spoiled when it comes to football coaching changes and early success. Yes, June Jones and Greg McMackin were blown out by USC and Florida in their debuts, but both took Hawaii to bowl games in their first seasons.

Most expected a 1-3 record at this point. What might be surprising is the record-breaking magnitude of the blowout losses and a sinking-ship feeling as the offense becomes less productive each week and the defense more battered.

Playing back-to-back road games doesn’t help this week, and UH will go to San Diego State with its injury-riddled defensive line in dire need of reinforcements. Unfortunately, this is college football, and it’s not like there are skilled 300-pound nose tackles just hanging out at Campus Center waiting for the call.

Expect everyone on the schedule the rest of the season to keep pounding the middle of the UH defense. There’s really no reason to do anything else when the Warriors are forced to play defensive ends and offensive linemen at tackle.

I originally thought the player Hawaii could least afford to lose this season was punter Alex Dunnachie. I now know it’s Moses Samia and anyone else who really knows how to play up front and center on defense and possesses the required stoutness and toughness for the job.

Offense? UH, like everyone else, needs studs and speed. So as always it comes down to recruiting. Chow is one of the best game-planners and play-callers in the business, but it won’t matter until he has the horses.

There are also the inevitable comparisons of Chow to Fred vonAppen, and that’s where a lot of the angst comes from for a certain segment of the fan base.

Both were career assistant coaches. Both cerebral. Both 1-3 to start out (vonAppen’s Rainbows beat Boise State in the fourth game of the 1996 season).

The difference, hopefully, is that by Chow’s third season the on-field story is about significant progress rather than a descent to the rock-bottom of 0-12.

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Reach Dave Reardon at <@Tagline -- email1>dreardon@staradvertiser. com<@$p> or 529-4783.