Given the frequency with which Norm Chow has been popping up on campuses, when he was spotted in the Punahou School area for sixth-graders last month there was a guess that he was doing some very advanced recruiting.

Alas, Chow was just catching a ride to the University of Hawaii with a friend who had a son to drop off on the way, it was explained.

But several local high school coaches will tell you the new UH head football coach has put in plenty of campus time when he wasn’t car pooling.

“I’ve seen more of him in two weeks than some other guys in years,” said one private school coach.

Another, Kamehameha Schools’ David Stant, said, “He’s been to our school a lot and I’ve heard the same from some other coaches.”

The Warriors’ positive recruiting results despite an 11th-hour start, demonstrated by Wednesday’s showing on National Letter of Intent day, have been eye-opening. But maybe they shouldn’t have been.

The coach who joked about implementing Bill Belichick’s “20/20 theory” — working young assistant coaches 20 hours a day for $20,000 annual salaries — has been leading by example. Even if his paycheck is fatter.

After all, when he took the UH job, the 65-year-old Chow pledged to roll up his sleeves on the task of rebuilding the Warriors and rebutted questions about his age by inviting skeptics to stop by his office or catch up with him on his rounds.

These days Chow likes to needle friends 20 years younger by telling them, “I saw your car still in the driveway early in the morning while I was on the way to work.”

Yet for all the Warriors were able to do with their first recruiting class on the run under Chow, the hope is there is much better to come. Indeed, the most encouraging thing is that the Warriors have already waded into the class of 2013, the current high school juniors. And not just to toe depth, either.

High school coaches say UH has not only been boning up on and evaluating the juniors, but has been making scholarship intentions known, as well.

Officially, schools can’t make offers directly to underclassmen until Aug. 1, under NCAA rules. But they can make their intentions known to high school coaches, who convey the sentiments.

To be sure, UH has done some of that in the past, but indications are not nearly to the tune currently underway. UH is said to have already offered — or be in the process of extending — 12 to 15 scholarships for ’13.

Good thing, too, because recruiting analysts forecast the upcoming local crop to be one of the better ones in recent years. Which is noteworthy since 14 Hawaii high school seniors signed letters of intent with Football Bowl Subdivision schools on Wednesday.

No word yet on that class of 2018, but chances are Chow will be back, and not to car pool, either.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.