Hubbard has big plans for UNLV football

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, March 31, 1999 | 9:27 a.m.

Joe Hubbard thought his college football days were over.

The Director of Football Operations at USC for John Robinson from 1993-97 and the architect of several top-10 national recruiting classes, Hubbard was busy developing a TV show about a college football program called "The Season" that had been bought by Disney. If it was picked up, Hubbard stood to make well into six figures.

Luckily for UNLV and Robinson, also one of the co-creators of the show, the project was shelved for redevelopment in January.

That opened the door for the personable Hubbard to accept a job as director of football operations and recruiting coordinator at UNLV.

"Joe has a great understanding of people," Robinson said. "He's a great salesman. He has a way with people, a way with parents. I think I'd be kind of lost without Joe in terms of some of the projects we're trying to do."

"I never thought I'd be back in football again," Hubbard, who also worked with Robinson as a consultant with the Rams, said. "That's because I didn't think John would coach again. But he called me when (the UNLV job) was coming up and I could hear that enthusiasm in his voice. I could tell there was something here that was bigger than just another job. And that intrigued me."

So much so that after Robinson took the job in mid-December, Hubbard made two separate trips here from Los Angeles to check out the campus and facilities -- even though it appeared at the time that his TV pilot would get picked up this spring. Hubbard even thought about the possibility of trying to balance both jobs and perhaps having the show filmed at UNLV.

But when the project was put on hold, Hubbard decided to rejoin his longtime friend Robinson and help him with the daunting task of trying to turn a football team that has lost its last 16 games into a top-25 program.

"I saw the very same things on my trips here that John did," Hubbard said. "Everything is here to do something really fun, something challenging, something to make the people of Las Vegas proud of." Then Hubbard dropped this bombshell.

"It's a better situation here at UNLV than it ever was at USC."

For one thing, Hubbard and Robinson have the full support of athletic director Charles Cavagnaro and associate AD Jerry Koloskie.

That's in marked contrast to their final two years at USC where, despite winning the 1996 Rose Bowl over Northwestern, Trojan AD Mike Garrett didn't speak to Robinson for well over a year.

Garrett, known for making surprise halftime pep talks and the dressing down of players on the sidelines and in the locker room, didn't like getting booted out of the locker room at halftime of a game.

Garrett also was unhappy with Robinson's staff and wanted him to fire several assistants, including offensive line coach Mike Barry, who was the offensive line coach for national champion Tennessee this year, and defensive coordinator Keith Burns, credited with helping revise Arkansas' program last season.

But Robinson, criticized for the firing of some of his assistants near the end of his Rams' coaching stint, didn't budge. Despite going 6-5 with basically a sophomore and redshirt freshman-ladened team -- and despite beating Notre Dame in South Bend for the first time in almost two decades -- Robinson and company clumsily got the axe from Garrett and school president Dr. Steven Sample three weeks after a season-ending 31-24 loss to UCLA in 1997.

"I am tremendously impressed with the facilities here," Hubbard said. "Charlie Cavagnaro, Jerry Koloskie, Pooch (equipment man Paul Pucciarelli), (strength coach) Mark Philippi ... I could immediately see during my visits here that there was a huge amount of support for this program.

"Everything was in place for the football team to be successful. The only thing that was left was going out and getting the right players and putting together the right product to become a top football team. And, believe it or not, that's the easy part if you have the support."

Especially with Robinson's name and Hubbard's recruiting ties.

"One of the things I know happened in our last recruiting class here is that because of John, we were able to get kids here that normally wouldn't visit UNLV," Hubbard said.

"The whole key to recruiting a kid is to get him to visit your school and also to get his parents to come. If a kid comes to Las Vegas and we show him around, we've got as good a chance as anybody to sign him. This is an impressive city."

Hubbard had to battle major negative recruiting battles at USC because of some of the gang-infested areas that surround part of the campus. So he doesn't believe the gambling-casino image of Las Vegas will be hard to overcome in recruiting.

"I think there will be some of that, but that's why we want people to come here on a visit," he said.

"Sure, there is a part of Las Vegas that has casinos. But there are also some great areas out here, like Green Valley and Summerlin, that are a lot nicer than the areas that most of the kids we'll recruit live in. And we definitely don't have to fight the area around the school at UNLV like we did at USC because it's a nice area here.

"This is an extremely nice town," Hubbard continued. "I may be overstating this, but I think we have a shot against UCLA and SC in certain kinds of scenarios for kids. And in a couple of years, they're going to be worried about recruiting against us."

To try to get the word out about UNLV's program, Hubbard has been busy organizing June summer camps and a passing league competition with an emphasis on attracting top recruits. He and Robinson have also been busy meeting with many of the city's leaders, to try to get them more involved in the football program.

Hubbard also plans on bringing in some of the nation's recruiting gurus to show them around the town this spring, so that they might have a better idea of the UNLV football facilities when they chat with prospective recruits.

Hubbard was asked if one of the reasons he and Robinson decided to come to Las Vegas was to prove to the folks at USC that they made a mistake when they fired them.

"I don't know if that's (Robinson's) motivation," Hubbard said. "But for me, there is a part of me where I'd like to prove that for him.

"John's not a vindictive guy. He's not a guy who's going to ever be less than classy about that. But I sure as hell wouldn't mind having them look back and go, 'Look at what he can do.' "