This was a second consecutive great weekend for University of Hawaii sports.

Make that for Hawaii sports, in general.

Contested on the same night UH was upsetting Pitt in basketball, the Mililani-Punahou football state championship final Friday was one of the most entertaining games I’ve ever seen.

The talented teams traded blows from beginning to end and the outcome was undecided until the final seconds. It’s up there with the Rolovich (UH) vs. Roethlisberger (Miami of Ohio) shootout of 2001 and the 2004 Pro Bowl in that regard.

Saturday’s UH-UNLV game was a little different. It certainly ended in a flurry of overdrive excitement, but the beginning was as sluggish as the Friday afternoon traffic.

It was two below-average teams playing for pride and for their teammates. As much as it was won by the Rainbow Warriors making clutch plays down the stretch, it was lost by the Rebels making stupid mistakes.

And, that is part of what the anti-Norm Chow faction (it’s still very large, despite this current two-game winning "streak") is clinging to now in its argument that the UH coach must be fired: The fact that 2-10 UNLV is a bad team.

The element that wants him gone says four or five wins in the third year after a coaching change is not enough progress, especially playing in the mediocre Mountain West.

I heard a lot on Sunday that this is too little, too late. Beating San Jose State 13-0 and now UNLV 37-35 doesn’t matter, because Chow already ran the program into the ground.

The reality is that it was headed that way, and no one coach was going to come in and magically avert the iceberg.

Does that mean Chow was the right replacement for Greg McMackin? No.

But it’s very debatable if anyone else would’ve won more games to this point or come closer to "chasing championships" in year three.

The juicy June Jones rumor refuses to die. As interesting as that might be — largely because he DID turn the Titanic around, or, more aptly, resurrected it in 1999 — it would, or should, take a lot of explaining about what happened at SMU before it could even be considered.

Money?

On Sunday I was told that athletic director Ben Jay was recently presented with an offer to buy out Chow’s contract, clearing the way for Jones.

"News to me," Jay texted in response when I asked if true.

There’s a lot of this kind of talk going around, too: "I’m happy and proud of ‘the kids.’ But the coach has to go."

Give me a break. ‘The kids’ who hooked up for the game-winning touchdown are the same two who have been ripped the most throughout the season, with cries to replace them.

The offense has sputtered a lot under Chow, especially this year. And — because the opponent is UNLV — it’s easy for his detractors not to give him any of the credit for 578 yards and 37 points of offense.

It fits the script more to wonder what’s going to happen without Joey Iosefa, who had a hand in about half of that production.

Yes, that senior night win was something for the fans to cherish — at least the ones who love the players more than they dislike the coach.

Reach Star-Advertiser sports columnist Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com and twitter.com/davereardon.