Columnist Ron Kantowski: Rebels don’t have to settle for leftovers

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004 | 10:01 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

Is it too late to call Rick Neuheisel?

Notre Dame's stunning decision to fire Ty Willingham Tuesday after just three short years on the job will likely create a ripple effect in the college football coaching pool that is far-reaching. So far-reaching, that it will probably force UNLV to go to Plan B as far as finding a replacement for John Robinson.

With Willingham having been conveniently shuffled into the unemployment line, Utah's Urban Meyer will get his dream job at Notre Dame. Then Butch Davis goes back to Florida, this time to coach the Gators. Boise's Dan Hawkins takes the Washington job and keeps his fishing pole. Or maybe he goes to environmentally correct Stanford, where he would be expected to release the fish he catches. As for Willingham, he's still a hot commodity for two reasons: He's black and he just got dissed by Notre Dame, which will probably entitle him to the Pac-10 job that Hawkins doesn't want.

With Meyer gone to wake up the echoes, Utah becomes yesterday's news. But somebody will have to oversee Alex Smith's Heisman Trophy campaign next year, and if Kyle Whittingham, the Utes' respected defensive coordinator but a good Mormon boy long before that, replaces Gary Crowton at his alma mater BYU, then Mike Sanford, the Utes' offensive coordinator under Meyer, likely will inherit the head job in Salt Lake City.

If all of that happens it would probably leave UNLV holding an empty bag when it's getting awfully late to be holding one.

Sanford had emerged, if that's the right word, as the leading candidate to replace Robinson during UNLV athletic director Mike Hamrick's three-month surreptitious search to find his successor. Of course, Hamrick will never admit to that if Sanford turns down the job.

He'll have you believe that Jim Chaney or Kirby Wilson or whatever anonymous coordinator from whatever middling Big Ten school gets the job was his guy all along.

Jim Chaney? Isn't the guy Warren Zevon saw walking with the queen, doin' the Werewolves of London? When there isn't a full moon, Jim Chaney is the offensive coordinator at Purdue, which shows how far the UNLV program has slipped, at least from a perception standpoint.

The last time the Rebels dipped into the coordinator ranks for a head football coach they were able to attract the offensive coordinator from that year's national championship team, although it settled for Lou Holtz's left-hand man (Jim Strong) at Notre Dame in 1988 when it should have pursued his right-hand one (Barry Alvarez).

Yeah, I know, Purdue throws the ball all over the field as is fun to watch. I also know that defense wins championships, which is why the Boilermakers can't beat Michigan or Ohio State. Or Nebraska can't beat anybody these days.

Wilson's only college coaching experience was a year at USC as receivers coach in 2001 and two at Wyoming as secondary coach more than 10 years ago. He's black, and college football needs more minority head coaches like it needs a playoff. But his resume seems a little thin.

That's why UNLV should call Neuheisel. Unlike those other guys, you don't need a resume to learn where he has been or, more important, what he has done as a college football coach.

Sure, he's got a past. But he's also got a future, if anybody were willing to put a no-tolerance clause in his contract and give him another chance.

The blemishes on Neuheisel's record are minor recruiting violations at Colorado and being investigated for some at Washington. The big zit was putting up a few bucks -- OK, $6,400 of them -- to participate in an off-campus NCAA basketball office pool and initially fibbing about it. Later, he produced an internal memo from the U-Dub compliance director that erroneously said participating in pools outside of the athletic department was OK.

In October, the NCAA cleared Neuheisel, so it's not as if he was convicted of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Or got caught with a couple of strippers in his room, like Mike Price did at Alabama.

That apparently will get a guy fired even before he can lose to Auburn. Nobody would touch Price with a 10-foot pole except Texas at El Intercepted Paso.

UTEP became bowl eligible in Price's first year. The Miners' coach is now more popular in El Paso than a fast horse during the Marty Robbins Era.

Strippers? What strippers? Now the only thing Price is known for is turning around downtrodden football programs.

Neuheisel could do the same here while rehabbing his image. He had a 66-30 record at Washington and Colorado, despite rarely playing Wyoming or Nevada-Reno, and won the Rose, Cotton, Aloha and Holiday bowls. At 43, he's still young and looks even younger. A former quarterback at UCLA, he knows the West Coast better than Jan and Dean. His teams throw the football and he's great with the media. He's got a wife and three kids and is a devout family man, if that matters to anybody.

In this town, his name would sell tickets. Lots and lots of tickets. And he's got more class than people give him credit for.

Before things turned sour at Washington, he and wife Susan made a $100,000 contribution to the school and received a brick with their name on it outside Husky Stadium. When the Neuheisels learned that bitter fans were spitting on the brick, they asked to have it replaced with one honoring Curtis Williams, the Washington defensive back who played for Neuheisel and died from complications following a head-on tackle in 2000.

Neuheisel is still coaching football -- as a volunteer assistant at Rainier Beach High in Seattle's inner-city. So it can be assumed he hasn't gotten the game out of his system.

With a lot of legal bills to pay, a residual of his losing battle to keep his job at Washington and ultimately clear his name, it can't be assumed that a UNLV job that pays peanuts compared to the $1.2 million he was making annually up in Starbucks country would interest Neuheisel.

But just for the heck of it, somebody at UNLV should make a phone call to find out.