Oregon State’s Las Vegas recruiting success withers

By Rob Miech

Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009 | 2:10 a.m.

Oregon State’s football pipeline to Las Vegas has dried up like an ice cube on the Strip in the middle of summer.

When the Beavers visit Sam Boyd Stadium to play UNLV tonight, they will have nobody from Las Vegas on their roster.

In 2002, when the Rebels played in Corvallis, Ore., five Las Vegans were Beavers. A year later, when OSU ran roughshod over New Mexico in the Las Vegas Bowl, the Beavers had eight players with Las Vegas roots.

Canada and Ohio, with two players apiece, have become more fertile for OSU coach Mike Riley than Las Vegas.

The pipeline to Las Vegas has turned into a Banzai Pipeline from the Hawaiian Islands. Sixteen Beavers hail from Hawaii, including six who went to Kahuku High.

But that doesn’t mean Riley has given up on mining the Las Vegas area for talent.

Far from it, according to Palo Verde High coach Darwin Rost, a veteran of the Las Vegas prep football scene and the head of the Southern Nevada Football Coaches Association.

“Things go in cycles,” Rost said. “Kids aren’t selecting Oregon State right now. They’re making decisions to go other places.”

Rost said Beavers linebacker coach Greg Newhouse, in his 13th season as an OSU assistant coach and the program’s main recruiter of Nevada and Oregon, has not let up on his interest in the area.

Newhouse liked Phillip Payne a lot, but the receiver from Western High picked UNLV. Newhouse liked cornerback Torin Harris and offensive lineman Mike Smith, but the Palo Verde grads went to USC and Nebraska, respectively.

Newhouse was with Riley in his first stint in Corvallis, was kept on the staff during Dennis Erickson’s tenure and is a valuable part of Riley’s second go-around at OSU.

Richard Seigler (Chaparral High) and Jonathan Pollard (Las Vegas High) were on the 2000 OSU squad that blasted Notre Dame, 41-9, in the Fiesta Bowl and finished fourth in the polls.

That was the second of Erickson’s four seasons in Corvallis. He and Newhouse knew the incredible growth of Las Vegas would be reflected on the football fields of the city.

“It’s growing so fast,” Erickson said at the time. “There are high schools going up all the time. There are more players developing there than probably any place in the country. It’s not very heavily recruited.

“So we went in there (to get) Seigler and have continued to recruit there. We were able to go and develop a pretty good rapport with the coaches in that area.”

Over the past 15 years, the number of Las Vegas high schools has jumped from a dozen to 33.

Apparently other OSU assistants have tried to nudge in on Newhouse’s turf.

“I have a lot of assistants that volunteer to recruit down there,” Erickson said. “I can’t figure that one out.”

A UNR graduate, Newhouse coached at UNLV in 1978 and 1979.

He convinced Gerard Lawson, a defensive back about to start his second season with the Cleveland Browns, to go to Corvallis out of Palo Verde.

“He knows the area real well and the history of Vegas,” Rost said of Newhouse. “It seemed like every year they were getting a kid out of Vegas. Lately, they haven’t.

“But I’m telling you, he’s a really good recruiter. He does a very good job evaluating kids and he has a good handle on them. All of the kids who went out to big-time colleges, he was in on.”

In the 2003 Las Vegas Bowl, Eldorado High’s Steven Jackson tallied five touchdowns in the Beavers’ 55-14 victory over New Mexico. After the game, he announced he was leaving school a year early for the NFL draft.

The St. Louis Rams selected him with the 24th pick in the first round, and Jackson has collected 5,291 yards and 37 touchdowns. He’s about to start his sixth pro season.

Defensive tackle Curtis Coker (Desert Pines), cornerback Kellen Marshall (Cimarron-Memorial), linebacker Jonathan Pollard (Las Vegas), safety Lawrence Turner (Cheyenne) and defensive end Jeff Van Orsow (Foothill), along with Pollard and Seigler, were also on that squad.

“It seemed like Oregon State was the one school in the Pac-10 that was picking up a kid every year in Las Vegas,” Rost said. “Kids still love playing for (Newhouse). He has a lot of energy and is a really good Xs and Os guy.”

No Las Vegas prospects are prominent on a few lists of OSU’s next recruiting class, according to several recruiting services. Again, that doesn’t necessarily mean Newhouse or Riley have avoided the area.

"We haven't gotten anybody from (Vegas) recently,'' Riley said in The Oregonian on Thursday. "We had a great history there and we'd like to find more players there.''