Columnist Steve Guiremand: Local schools missed boat on Kretschmer

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Nov. 30, 2001 | 11:38 a.m.

Steve Guiremand covers college football for the Sun. His Around Campus column appears on Fridays during football season. Reach him at 259-2324 or steveg@lasvegassun.com.

If you need a good example of why football recruiting is called an inexact science, just look toward Reno.

Running back Chance Kretschmer leads the nation in rushing with 1,732 yards and an average of 157.45 yards and finished his season with a 45-carry, 327-yard, six touchdown effort in the Wolf Pack's 48-31 victory over UTEP last Saturday night at the Sun Bowl.

"The yards say it all -- the guy is amazing," Nevada-Reno quarterback David Neill told the Reno Gazette-Journal afterward.

Kretschmer, who slam-dunked the football over the crossbar after his final TD, is an amazing example of how two struggling in-state football programs could turn a blind eye toward a blue chip running back in their own state.

The 6-foot-2, 220-pound Kretschmer starred at tiny Tonopah High School, about 260 miles north of Las Vegas and 200 miles south of Reno. He led the state in rushing at the 2-A school and popped up in several major national recruiting publications before his senior season.

I remember another Tonopah alum, Las Vegas 51s president Don Logan, tipping me off about Kretschmer before his junior year. Among the schools giving him a look then was Wisconsin.

But amazingly both Nevada-Reno and UNLV didn't offer Kretschmer a scholarship and asked him to walk on. So much for doing your homework. There's maybe a dozen Division I prospects in the state each year, so its not like a potential superstar would be easy to overlook. Perhaps both schools should re-evaluate their recruiting organizations.

Kretschmer eventually went to Reno where he was promptly redshirted on a team that would go 2-10 with virtually no running game. Even once on campus the Wolf Pack apparently didn't realize what they had. Kretschmer began this season as a fourth-string walk-on. When highly touted JC transfer Herman Ho-Ching failed to garner his associate's degree, he moved up to third string.

Now three months later, he's the nation's top rusher.

"Not bad for a freshman, huh," UNR coach Chris Tormey said Saturday night.

What he should have added was, "Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good when it comes to recruiting."

Life of Riley?

Speculation in the San Diego media is that Chargers head coach Mike Riley can have the San Diego State head coaching job if he wants it. And there's a good chance that Riley, who is on the hot seat in San Diego and working for a general manager, John Butler, who didn't bring him in, could take it.

Riley, perhaps the nicest guy to deal with in coaching, would be a huge hire for San Diego State athletic director Rick Bay. Remember, it was Riley who recruited Ken Simonton and Jonathan Smith to Oregon State when nobody else in the Pac-10 wanted them and basically laid the solid foundation of players that Dennis Erickson inherited last year in Corvallis.

If you can recruit top-notch talent to Corvallis, think of what you can do in a place like San Diego.

Riley, a former quarterback for Bear Bryant at Alabama, turned down the chance to take over the Crimson Tide last year because he didn't want to uproot his family and move again. He also could have had the USC job. But he likes San Diego and would likely bring the majority of a very talented assistant coaching staff with him back from the Chargers.

UNLV fans should root for Riley not to take the Aztec job. If he does, the sleeping giant that is San Diego State football will become one of the top two or three programs in the Mountain West Conference within two years.

Once around the MWC