Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Rebels FOOTBALL:

Hauck hits ground running in first days at UNLV

Recruiting taking priority for first-year Rebels coach upon arrival in Las Vegas

UNLV New Football Coach-Bobby Hauck

UNLV officially ended its search for a new football coach today by announcing former University of Montana head coach Bobby Hauck as their new man.

Bobby Hauk introduced at UNLV

New UNLV head football coach Bobby Hauck smiles during a news conference at UNLV Wednesday, December 23, 2009. Hauck had a 80-17 record at Montana where he was the head coach from 2003. Launch slideshow »

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  • UNLV coach Bobby Hauck on his most memorable Las Vegas recruit — James Sims

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  • UNLV coach Bobby Hauck on his personality as a coach

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  • UNLV coach Bobby Hauck on his dad, Bob Sr., who was his inspiration in getting into coaching

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  • UNLV coach Bobby Hauck on balancing his coaching life and family life

In the corner office on the second floor of the Lied Athletic Complex, the lights are off with the blinds cracked open. The bookshelves are empty, suitcases are lined up against one wall and a large plasma screen is tuned to the Rose Bowl game.

On the large wooden desk is a computer with the power turned off, endless sheets of notebook paper scrawled with notes and a Styrofoam container filled with Hawaiian barbecue — some pork and white rice — which fills the entire room with a sweet aroma.

Welcome to the life of a first-year head college football coach who is under the gun.

Bobby Hauck, who UNLV hired for its vacancy just two days before Christmas, arrived in Las Vegas for good Thursday. And instead of checking out his new hometown on the craziest night of the year, the 45-year-old and a few of his staff members dissected film as the ball dropped welcoming 2010. They were taking in both game film from UNLV's 5-7 run this fall and of prospective recruits they'll begin hunting come Monday morning.

"We're in a 12-month cycle," Hauck said during some downtime on New Year's Day. "Next year at this time, everybody's going to be in a groove and know how it goes. But for now, through the next 12 months, it's going to be new almost daily. And we're going to be pressed to get everything done by September. That's just how it is. It's a battle against the calendar and the clock.

"Everybody feels pressure; people respond differently. It's how you handle that."

Hauck wouldn't have it any other way.

After going 80-17 over the last seven seasons at Football Championship Subdivision — formerly 1-AA — powerhouse Montana, UNLV athletic director Jim Livengood gave Hauck the opportunity to get his first opportunity at the Football Bowl Subdivision level.

It's further validation that he chose the right career path more than 20 years ago. In the process, Hauck said, he disappointed his mother by shunning law school and instead following in the footsteps of his father, Bob Sr., who was a long-time high school coach.

"She found this newspaper article that she'd had for years," he said. "It was old and yellow. She gave it to my wife before I married her. The headline was 'Never marry a coach, but if you do ...'. It was an advice column.

"But football's been good to us, it really has. It's been rewarding both personally and professionally."

Now Hauck's goal is to make sure the game continues to love him back.

His wife, Stacy, and the couple's four kids — twin daughters Sydney and Alexandra, son Robby and daughter Elise — won't make their way to town for awhile, and Bobby is being put up in a hotel on the southeast side of town. In the meantime, recruiting basically will consume his life.

"On Monday, we need to be into schools and starting to see kids and get going on that," he said. "We'll be all over the place. Certainly, one of the priorities is to start with Nevada kids and particularly Las Vegas kids. We want to recruit every Nevada kid that we think can help us win a championship and then go from there."

Hauck is more than familiar with recruiting in the Las Vegas Valley, too. In his first full-time college coaching position as an assistant at Northern Arizona from 1993-94, Las Vegas served as one of his primary recruiting areas, and he's dipped into town for talent ever since.

"My favorite guy, and I don't want to short-change anybody, was a guy named James Sims (from Valley High) who we had at Washington," Hauck said, drawing back on his Las Vegas experience. "He played safety for me and he wound up moving to running back after I left Washington, but he was a great guy, good student, good guy.

"He babysat my kids in the hotel on the bowl trips. Just a wonderful guy."

While it's unknown just how many potential babysitters remain unsigned in terms of the current recruiting class, plenty of gridiron talent is still available for the taking.

Leading the way is a pair from state champion Bishop Gorman — wide receiver/safety Taylor Spencer, who scored five defensive touchdowns this fall for the Gaels, and linebacker Evan Palelei, who is the son of former NFL lineman Lonnie Palelei.

Utah is in hot pursuit of Spencer, while Palelei, who de-committed from Stanford, has a standing offer from Colorado. A third prospect to keep an eye out for is Green Valley kicker Nolan Kohorst, who boasts the valley's strongest leg — and quite possibly its most accurate, too.

"Obviously, priority one, two and three is recruiting right now," Hauck said.

After studying a good amount of UNLV's 2009 game film, Hauck also said he's encouraged by what he'll already have in place to work with in his first season.

"I like our team," he said. "I think that coach (Mike) Sanford and that group did a nice job creating a foundation, and we need to build on that."

Even though winter conditioning for returning players begins Jan. 11, Hauck said, he won't be able to completely evaluate where his team's true strengths and weaknesses are until the Rebels are on the field for spring ball come late March.

Though he's only held one previous head coaching post, Hauck is one-for-one in success right off of the bat.

"The first year (at Montana) was a big adjustment," he said of that 8-4 campaign. "I thought we were not talented as much as we needed to be in terms of what the expectation was."

Here, he'll meet significantly lower expectations of the program from the public. Where Montana contends for FCS national titles, UNLV fans want nothing more than a bowl appearance. The program's next would be its first since 2000.

If anything, UNLV's fan base has proven to be fickle, and as the Rebels have started each of the last two seasons 3-1, interest grew. It plummeted, however, as both campaigns fizzled to 5-7 finishes.

His track record suggests that Hauck is the guy to get the Rebels over that hump, but in the national scope, he most recently caused controversy during a flap with the Montana student newspaper, The Kaimin.

"You can't Google my name without having that pop up," he said jokingly.

He and his players refused to take questions from their staff following a story printed about an alleged assault by two of his players. Warranted or unwarranted, it made Hauck the subject of national criticism.

"When that was going on, I knew (shunning the paper) wasn't going to be productive, but it was kind of what our players thought should be done," he said. "I didn't disagree with them at the time, but I'd probably go do something else (if I had it to do over again).

"Perception's important, but I think in the long run, substance is what counts. People, when they get to know (the coaching staff) and me, they'll know we've got some substance to us. It's not just a facade. We are who we are — we're solid people. Any time I make a decision, I'm going to do it because I think it's the right thing to do. Whether it's popular or unpopular is irrelevant. That's how I operate. Sometimes that doesn't play well, and that's a good example of it."

Overcoming that national perception, Hauck said, is not a priority.

However, turning around a dormant program at UNLV could make him known nationally for his trade rather than an isolated incident. It may take time, but Hauck's plan is in place, no matter how scattered the workplace looks at the moment.

"You don't just launch into it and say, 'OK, we're here now, we've got the magic, we're going to win the national championship,'" he said. "You try to get a win, build from that, get another win and another win, try to get bowl eligible and get another win.

"Then you go from there."

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