Jason Cvercko will be the X factor when the Hawaii and Nevada football teams meet Saturday at Aloha Stadium.

Cvercko was Nevada’s coordinator of recruiting operations until last December, when he accepted an offer to join UH head coach Nick Rolovich’s inaugural staff. The Wolf Pack’s 2016 recruiting class was mostly assembled when Cvercko departed.

“It was really tough to leave Nevada,” said Cvercko, who developed a close friendship with head coach Brian Polian. “That was my only regret, that I had to leave him.”

But Cvercko long professed UH to be on his wish list of jobs. As an insomniac in high school and college in Connecticut, Cvercko followed the Rainbow Warriors. He also wanted to live in a place different from Connecticut’s extreme climate of sweltering heat and bitter chill.

“I wanted Jason from the start,” said Rolovich, who was Nevada’s offensive coordinator for four years before returning to his alma mater in December. “It was a little bit awkward because Polian wanted to keep him. Originally, I respected that. But Jason told me Hawaii was one of his five dream jobs. I felt it was the right thing to do for him and us.”

Cvercko, who is the Rainbow Warriors’ recruiting coordinator, also helps with academics and serves as the pro liaison.

Polian “understood the reasons for why I was leaving,” Cvercko said. “He respected it.”

While Cvercko’s departure was emotionally painful, his arrival to Nevada also was arduous.

Rolovich and Cvercko knew each other for a few years through a short stint at Massachusetts and attendance at the NCAA football conventions. Rolovich recommended Cvercko to Polian in December 2014. Cvercko interviewed for the job in January 2015 and then … crickets.

“I didn’t think I got it because I didn’t hear anything for two months,” Cvercko recalled.

Then Polian called, offering the job with a specific starting date. After completing his work at Stony Brook, Cvercko and his girlfriend, Jordan, had four days to make the 2,736-mile drive from Long Island, N.Y., to Reno, Nev.

He drove 17 hours to Illinois, where they stayed at Jordan’s mother’s house. Cvercko and Jordan then went to an area that was special to her. Cvercko took a knee, and proposed.

“I had the ring, and I was going to wait a couple more months,” Cvercko said. “But I wanted to show her good faith since she was moving with me.”

The next day, they stopped at a hotel in Wyoming following a 15-hour drive.

The third day, they reached Winnemucca, Nev., when an exhausted Cvercko needed to rest. They woke up early the next day, and completed the drive to Reno.

Cvercko helped scout and coordinate what would become Nevada’s 2016 recruiting class. Then at Hawaii, he helped organize Rolovich’s first recruiting class as head coach.

This past summer, Cvercko and Jordan married. It was his best commitment.