Sanford not bound by conventional timeline

Friday, Aug. 4, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

Charlie Weis did it in one year at Notre Dame. So did Urban Meyer at Utah. It took Pete Carroll two years to do it at USC.

Turning around a college football program, conventional wisdom holds, can take anywhere from three to five years. If that's the case, how did the aforementioned coaches do it so quickly and why is it expected to take Mike Sanford much longer at UNLV?

First of all, Sanford said, he doesn't subscribe to the theory that it will take him five years - the amount of time it takes for all of the players in a program to have been recruited by a coach - to turn around a program that has had only one winning season since 1994.

"I think logic would say that normally it takes three to five years, but at the same time, I don't want to put those kinds of limitations on us," he said.

Second - and perhaps most important - is the quality of student-athlete a program recruits. Weis was able to lead a Notre Dame team that went 6-6 in 2004 to a 9-3 mark last year in his first season, in large part because he inherited a Heisman Trophy candidate in quarterback Brady Quinn.

Sanford was a part of Utah's turnaround under Meyer as the Utes' offensive coordinator in 2003 and 2004. Meyer took over a team that was 5-6 in 2002, went 10-2 his first year, and went 12-0 and became a national championship contender in 2004. Of course, Meyer had the luxury of future first-round NFL draft pick Alex Smith leading the Utes' offense.

"The cupboard was stocked there, without a question," Sanford said of the talent at Utah when Meyer took over the program. "They were a decent team. They were a team that two years before that had beat USC in the Las Vegas Bowl."

UNLV, most observers agree, didn't have the same caliber of players when Sanford took over the program because of a lapse in recruiting during John Robinson's final years here. It also didn't have the "winning mentality" surrounding the program that Utah had when Meyer got that job.

But that's not to say Sanford believes turning around the UNLV football program, which has posted back-to-back 2-9 seasons, has to be a long-term project.

"I want to get this turned around as fast as I can; I don't put a deadline on it or a time frame on it," he said. "I don't want to limit myself or my coaches or our team and think that we're on some kind of hiatus until three years are up or five years are up."

Sanford got rid of several players from last year's team that didn't buy into his vision of the program and will welcome a handful of incoming players that could make an immediate impact. That has left Sanford with an optimistic outlook as the Rebels begin preseason practices Monday at Rebel Park.

"I really believe this team and this senior class is the foundation of turning this program around," he said. "I really believe that because of the commitment they've made and the attitude that they have and the work ethic that they've shown."