Rudolph, the hard-nosed runner

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Oct. 7, 1999 | 10:15 a.m.

What if?

It's a question that UNLV tailback Jeremi Rudolph admits has crossed his mind a few times as the Rebels have struggled to a 2-3 start.

It's only natural that Rudolph ask himself that question. After all, the former runner-up to Duante Culpepper for Mr. Florida Football could have been playing for No. 1-ranked Florida State these days if he had scored a point higher on his ACT his senior year at Apopka High School near Orlando.

Instead, the 5-9, 175-pound speedster took a $200,000 signing bonus from the Toronto Blue Jays that June to play baseball.

After two years of minor league baseball and two years of junior college football, Rudolph decided to gamble and play for an 0-11 UNLV football team. He liked head coach John Robinson's track record of producing Heisman Trophy tailbacks such as Charles White and Marcus Allen at USC as well as a number of other NFL stars.

The first recruit of the Robinson era of UNLV football, Rudolph has more than lived up to his tremendous billing. He ranks third in the Mountain West Conference with a 72.0 rushing yards per game average and leads the team with four touchdowns. He had a breakout game in last Saturday's 26-12 loss at Nevada-Reno, rushing for 120 yards on 20 carries and catching six passes for 56 more yards, including a 40-yard catch and run for a touchdown that included several eye-popping moves.

This despite playing behind a young offensive line that's going through more than its share of growing pains and without the help of a decent passing attack.

"He's very impressive in that if you give him a little bit of space, he's able to do something with it," Robinson said. "We need to find more ways to get him the ball."

The soft-spoken Rudolph admits he has thought about what it would have been like playing for Bobby Bowden in Tallahassee.

"Yeah, I have," he said after a recent practice at Rebel Park. "Everybody I played high school football with back in Florida ... Jevon Kearse, Johnny Rutledge, Duante Culpepper, Reggie McGrew ... is in the (NFL) now. What if I had stayed at Florida State? When Warrick Dunn left, I would have been right there starting with Travis Minor. And I would have been close to home.

"But I chose to come out here," Rudolph continued. "Like Coach Robinson said, you have to take a gamble on it. I took a gamble on Las Vegas."

And despite his team's recent struggles, Rudolph says it's a gamble he thinks has paid off.

"I'm enjoying myself and I like it a lot here," he said. "It's just hard now because we're in a slump."

Rudolph isn't accustomed to losing. In three years as a starter at Apopka High School, the Blue Darters went 35-3. He matched that loss total in just the past three weeks at UNLV.

"I'm used to winning," Rudolph said. "I never really got beat like 52-14 (UNLV's losing score against Utah two weeks ago) before. It's kind of hard. But you've just got to fight through things like that. You have to stick together as team when adversity hits, keep working hard and have a positive attitude. ... We have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

Rudolph also wonders what might have happened had he continued to play baseball. Two players who came up with him in the Blue Jays system, outfielder Shannon Stewart and pitcher Roy Halladay, enjoyed successful big league seasons this year.

"When I saw Roy Halladay out on that mound throwing the ball, I thought, 'Man, what if I was still playing?' " Rudolph said. "I could be out in center field running down some fly balls for him.

"I'm happy to see that they're both still in it. Baseball is hard. You have so many A levels to go through to get to the major leagues. Some people are in the minor leagues for five or six years and never make it to the big leagues. It's a lot of hard work. That's why I decided to go back to football. I felt I had a better chance of going to the NFL out of Division I than spending five or six years in the minor leagues and trying to make it to the big leagues in baseball. And I wasn't getting any younger."

If he continues to make some of the runs he did against Nevada-Reno, there's little doubt Rudolph will get a chance to play on Sundays when he's done at UNLV.

"I think it was kind of a breakout game for me," Rudolph said. "But I think there's going to be another time during the year that I'm going to have an even bigger game than I had last week."

* WARE SURGERY GOES WELL: UNLV trainer Kyle Wilson said Wednesday morning's knee surgery on wide receiver Len Ware went "real good" and felt there was "a good shot" Ware could play in the Rebels' Oct. 23 homecoming game against BYU.

"It should be a quick rehab," Wilson said. "There was just a very little bit of cartilage removed. And there was no ligament damage."

* TERRELL OUT: Robinson said that starting right guard Tony Terrell will miss Saturday's game at Wyoming with a pinched nerve in his neck. Sophomore Shane Wagers (6-5, 315) will make his first college start in Terrell's spot. Starting center Danny Pacheco also saw some time at the spot in practice on Wednesday.

"I got a stinger in the Reno game," Terrell said. "In practice (Tuesday) I went back out for two plays and my whole arm went numb."

With UNLV having a bye next week, Terrell is expected to return for the Rebels' Oct. 23 game against BYU.

* MORE REBEL NOTES: Starting weakside linebacker Jerrad Pierucci is expected to rejoin the team tonight after attending his grandmother's funeral in Bakersfield, Calif., this morning. Pierucci has missed the entire week of practice but will still make the trip to Wyoming on Friday night. "It'll hurt him," Robinson said of Pierucci's lack of practice time. ... Safety Quincy Sanders (sore knee), defensive tackle Kawika Sagapolu (headaches) and defensive end Ahmad Briggs (sprained ankle) all saw limited practice time on Wednesday but are expected to play Saturday.