Sanford eager to dig in at a football ‘gold mine’

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2004 | 9:36 a.m.

NAME: Mike Sanford.

COACHING EXPERIENCE: 27 years.

AGE: 49.

HOMETOWN: Los Altos, Calif.

ALMA MATER: Southern California.

FAMILY: Wife, Melinda; children, Lindsay and Michael. Michael is a senior quarterback at Boise State.

COACHING STOPS: USC grad assistant, 1977; San Diego City College defensive coordinator, 1978; Army QB/WR coach, 1979-80; VMI Q/BWR / TE coach, 1981-82; Long Beach State QB/WR/ offensive coordinator, 1983-86; Purdue QB coach, 1987-88; USC WR coach, 1989-96; Note Dame QB coach, 1997-98; San Diego Chargers WR coach, 1999-2001; Stanford offensive coordinator, 2002; Utah offensive coordinator, 2003-2004.

NOTEWORTHY: Offense at Long Beach State finished fifth in the natio in 1985 and seventh in 1986. ... Was responsible for recruiting Sa Diego County and Southern California during two-year stint with Utah. ... Coached current NFL receivers Curtis Conway, Johnnie Morton and Keyshawn Johnson.

New UNLV head football coach Mike Sanford said he has a very simple philosophy when it comes to coaching his squad.

"I believe in coaching a football team as I father my children," Sanford said Monday afternoon at a news conference introducing him as the school's ninth football head football coach. "I believe in very strong discipline, very strong guidance, very strong direction and leadership, but also an atmosphere where they know that I care about them and they know that I love them."

Sanford, 49, takes over for his former college coach and mentor, John Robinson, who retired after a disappointing 2-9 season. Sanford spent the past two seasons as the offensive coordinator at Mountain West Conference rival Utah, which went 21-2 during that span, including a perfect 11-0 this season, while averaging 46.3 points per game.

Although there was much speculation that Sanford would stay in Salt Lake City to take over for Florida-bound Urban Meyer, he said that was not the case.

"I have the job that I dreamed of and I'm excited to be at UNLV," Sanford said.

"Because of the way this university and city are emerging, this football program is a gold mine. This is a great community and campus that offer so many opportunities and advantages. John Robinson laid the foundation here and I am ready to build on it. This football program is ready to explode."

Known as a tireless recruiter who landed such NFL stars as Keyshawn Johnson, Curtis Conway, Johnnie Morton and Daylon McCutcheon during his USC assistant coaching days, Sanford became a hot head coaching candidate this year after directing a Utah offense that scored an NCAA-leading 70 touchdowns and averaged a remarkable 502.7 yards per game.

Sanford promised to bring more of the same to UNLV.

"We are going to spread the field out, score points and we are going to be exciting," he said. "That is something that is going to be a trademark of UNLV football from here on.

"My goal here is to No. 1, raise the standard and raise the expectation level of our players and of our fans. Our expectation level should be, and my expectation level is, to win the Mountain West Conference championship, go to a bowl game and be ranked in the top 20 in the nation every year. That's how I'm going to coach, that's how I'm going to recruit and that's how I am going to approach this whole process from the beginning."

Although Meyer garnered much of the national attention for his high-scoring offenses at Bowling Green and Utah, Sanford made it clear he had a lot to do with Utah's offensive success the past two seasons.

"This offense has evolved a lot since I joined Urban at Utah," he said. "We are running a lot more option football. We have a shovel-pass play that everybody in the country is trying to copy. We do a lot of option football. When you can combine option football with a sophisticated passing game, then you've got something special. And that's what we're going to implement here.

"Urban was the CEO of Utah football like I'm going to be the CEO of UNLV football. But I was the offensive coordinator; I called the plays. It was my offense. I'm going to be the CEO here and run that offense here."

Sanford said he would continue to call the offensive plays for the Rebels.

Among the other areas Sanford touched on during his news conference:

Sanford said he is going to coach with "great effort and enthusiasm" and will recruit players who play the same way.

"The way I liken this process is it is just like a train," he said. "This train is moving down the tracks right now. We are a train and we are on the tracks and we are going. Either you are going to get on board the train or it is going to run over you." "