Maybe Nick Rolovich should put a sign around his neck stating “This game is the biggest game only because it’s the next game.”

Those words are straight from Coachspeak 101 — a course in which, thankfully, Rolovich apparently never enrolled.

But such a method of delivery would be classic Rolo … a little whimsical and clever, and code for something else. In this case, “C’mon Man! Of course this game is huge!”

One way you can tell that a football game is more important to the participants than the others on the schedule is how often the coaches and players are forced to deny that it is.

And that’s happened a lot in the run-up to the University of Hawaii’s game Saturday against Nevada.

The Rainbow Warriors and Wolf Pack barely knew each other existed before 2000, playing each other just four times, from 1920 to 1968. Then, with both teams in the Western Athletic Conference and now in the Mountain West it developed into a nice little rivalry of sorts … I say “of sorts” because Nevada has won the last five meetings and leads the series 12-8.

If UH doesn’t put a stop to it soon, it could become another case of unrequited hate, like BYU was. Remember? Until Bob Wagner, Michael Carter and those guys put an end to it in spectacular fashion, the Cougars kept beating the ’Bows, and they were like, “Whatever. And you’re not even our rival, anyway. That would be Utah.”

UNLV plays the part of the Utes in Nevada’s case, as the Rebels and the ’Pack are true rivals.

Poor Hawaii has no natural team to truly hate and be hated by. When UH stopped playing BYU regularly, Fresno State filled the void; when the Bulldogs and Warriors played, it almost always meant something, and was always intense. That was fueled a lot by the coaches, frenemies Pat Hill and June Jones.

Boise State was a hot matchup for a couple of years, but then the ’Bows got bad and the Broncos stayed good.

Until West Oahu gets its own team — which would be awesome, but ain’t gonna happen until that rich dude who owns Niihau decides he likes football more than sailing — UH will have no real, sustained rival.

It’s a geography problem.

Nevada works for now, though, largely because of The Return of Rolo. He’s been on the winning side of this series five of the past six years. The last four, when the former UH quarterback was the Wolf Pack offensive coordinator, Nevada averaged 39 points a game against UH, including 69 in 2012.

In 2010, Rolovich was on the Hawaii staff when it knocked Nevada out of a chance at a BCS bowl game. You remember — a guy named Kaepernick quarterbacked the Wolf Pack.

Nevada had almost done the same thing to UH in 2007, but Dan Kelly’s field goal delivered a 28-26 win and kept the Warriors’ unbeaten march to the Sugar Bowl alive. It was the kind of game that helps build a rivalry.

So does a trophy, like the Fremont Cannon for which Nevada and UNLV compete each year.

When UH played at Arizona two weeks ago, the Wildcats honored the battleship named for its state that is now a memorial at Pearl Harbor.

Something from the USS Nevada — which was also here Dec. 7, 1941, and fought with distinction that morning and throughout WWII — could be a perpetual trophy for the annual winner of this game … which is a big game more often than not.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.