There is growing speculation that these last two Mountain West Conference football games, beginning with Saturday’s Hawaii-Nevada-Las Vegas encounter, could be make or break for the head coach.

UH’s Norm Chow?

Not so much.

Would you believe that it is the Rebels’ Bobby Hauck, recipient of a three-year extension earlier this year, that faces the most scrutiny and highest degrees of heat as the regular season winds down?

UH’s 3-8 record (2-4 in conference) to this point is, of course, a disappointment. But the Rainbow Warriors got there from 1-11, unlike UNLV, which is 2-9 (1-5) coming off a 7-6 (5-3) season.

Without a victory against UH Saturday, where it is a 10-point underdog on the consensus Las Vegas betting line, or versus instate rival Nevada next week, UNLV would be stuck with its with eighth two-win season in 11 years.  

Not exactly the corner the Rebels thought they had finally succeeded in turning in 2013 with the school’s first bowl appearance in 13 years. 

Last year was a put-up-or-pack-up season for Hauck, who had gone 6-31 in three previous campaigns at UNLV. With UNLV’s first winning season since 2000, the Rebels thought they had finally put the futility of three consecutive two-win seasons behind them.

Aided, of course, by that game-winning 44-yard field goal as time expired to beat UH, 39-37. At the time and, even more in retrospect, that was huge for both teams.

Rebel fans knew their team might not win a divisional title this year, but the expectation was that at least the program had elevated itself from its past.

The patience that Hauck had counseled since coming over from Montana, where he had led the Grizzlies to three Football Championship Subdivision national title games, had finally seemed to pay dividends for UNLV and himself. At least that was the rallying cry.

And it was celebrated with a three-year contract extension for Hauck, including a $200,000 annual raise in salary to $700,000.

When questions were raised about the wisdom of such a salary hike among Nevada Regents, a prominent booster told the Las Vegas Sun, the $200,000 increase "is peanuts in the long run. Football is the program that can pull you out of budget problems … you’ve got to pay money to make money."

And therein lies the difference in temperatures between the hot seat that Hauck sits and where Chow is parked.

UNLV has a basketball program that makes beaucoup bucks and boosters who can — and do — throw around the kind of money that allows them to sneer at $200,000 as "peanuts." 

UNLV also has visions of building a new football/entertainment complex, the kind that require a program on an upward trajectory to garner support, and an athletic director and new president who did not hire Hauck. 

Meanwhile, at UH, where the athletic department deficit is already running at $3.5 million and class cutbacks are envisioned, the situation is such that administrators think twice about writing anymore retirement checks for coaches.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com.