Rebels believe in present

Tuesday, Aug. 6, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

IT WASN'T BRUTALLY hot Monday at Rebel Park, which was the first sign of hope.

When you're a rebuilding football program in a new superconference and your first game is against the probable preseason No. 1 team in the country, you don't casually toss victories aside, no matter how trivial.

If you take the so-called experts at their word, victories will be few and far between for UNLV this season. But either the word hadn't arrived here or the players refuse to believe what they read, which is another triumph of sorts.

A bunch of rosy-cheeked freshmen are going through the paces this week, breaking in the new digs at the Lied Athletic Complex for the veterans, who arrive Friday. The real fun for the Rebels begins Saturday when they don the pads for two-a-days. The forecast calls for temperatures in the upper 90s and humidity in the upper ... oops, that's the Olympic forecast for Atlanta. (Incidentally, will someone kindly inform Channel 3 the Games concluded Sunday so Andrew Smith can come home and have access to something other than a T-shirt kiosk. His UNLV football media credential is waiting for him at the sports information office.)

Getting back to the Rebels and talk of victories, I'm going to give Jeff Horton credit right now, 26 days before Peyton Manning tries to make dissecting a secondary an Olympic sport in the 2000 Sydney Games. Horton does not talk about winning. He does not talk about losing. He talks about improving. He wants his program to make steady improvement so when the Rebels eventually turn the corner, it won't be one of those Kodak moments like the 1994 Las Vegas Bowl championship. It will have a solid foundation.

"We're taking a big step as a program," he said. "If we can show that we're competitive, that we can be in ballgames, that we're making progress, it'll mean we're heading in the right direction."

Of course, when you talk to the players, they don't buy into the patience, rebuilding mode of thinking. They expect to get this thing turned around now, not later. And you have to admire them for it. They should be positive. After all, Aug. 31 has yet to arrive.

But as Horton says, if this program expects to be seriously competitive, it has to build steadily and forget about the shortcuts. And if it means going through a 2-10 or 3-9 season, the real fans will understand. As long as the players give it their best shot every week, nobody will be discouraged.

Horton, you see, is a realist. When he came here before Thanksgiving in 1993 to replace that turkey, Jim Strong, he said it was going to take 4-5 years to build things back up. He shocked everyone by taking what was left of the considerable talent Strong had amassed and won a Big West title and the Las Vegas Bowl. But it was like finding fool's gold in the river and Horton knew it.

Sure, he was hoping for better than 2-9 last season. But at the same time, he understood how it could have happened, what with all the inexperienced talent that got thrown into the fire.

This team is a little more experienced, but it is preparing to embark upon one of the most ambitious schedules in UNLV history. It could reflect poorly on the ledger before it's all said and done.

However, Horton will use a different yardstick to measure this team. He will look for effort. He will look for growth and maturity from his youngsters and leadership and poise from his seniors. He will look for the mistakes to decrease and productivity to increase.

So bemoan the losses if you want. For they will surely come, no matter how optimistic the players remain. This war is being fought while the factory tries to produce enough ammunition to make it a fair fight. That may still be a couple of years away.

But the will and the enthusiasm to get it done right is intact, starting with the head coach. The program is looking and moving forward, not backward. And even if nobody thinks this team can win, the players believe they can, which is half the battle.

When you believe, you can stand the heat, no matter how high the thermometer climbs.