Notebook: On-campus facility one of Sanchez’s next checklist items

By Taylor Bern

Friday, Feb. 6, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Tony Sanchez has made it clear he’s trying to build something at UNLV, and that starts with bricks and cement as much as wins and losses.

From the time he accepted the job to leave Bishop Gorman High for UNLV, Sanchez has acknowledged the need for a new on-campus facility for the football team. A one-stop shop with weight rooms, training tables, study areas and everything a player would need, similar to what basketball coach Dave Rice has with the Mendenhall Center.

Now that Sanchez has his first recruiting class in the books he can turn more of his attention to recruiting donors and getting the community invested in upgrading the program.

“I’m not willing to disclose anybody’s commitments yet but we’re working on it hard,” Sanchez said Monday from his office at the Lied Athletic Complex. “… What we need to do is have it designed through a firm and be able to show people this is what it is.

“I’m comfortable in the next 30-60 days we’ll have something on paper to show people.”

However, while that process is ongoing the Rebels have already improved things around the Lied Athletic Complex. Most of them are minor changes — chairs, carpeting, wallpaper — things you might not notice if you had never previously entered the building. But to Sanchez it all adds up.

“You have to take pride in what you have and you can’t settle for anything less,” Sanchez said. “The attention to detail goes so far.”

Those upgrades also include the same brand of sound system that Sanchez used for practices at Bishop Gorman. His Gaels practices were known for being full of energy and constantly moving, and the Rebels are likely in store for more of the same.

Assistants taken care of

Another change Sanchez wanted to make was more stable contracts for the assistant coaches that he brought in.

The previous structure, which some other programs also use, was 60-day contracts. Sanchez said his assistants are on one-year deals, while his coordinators — Barney Cotton on offense and Kent Baer on defense — have two-year contracts.

The base salaries for the on-field coaching staff break down as follows:

• Bear and Cotton $210,000

• Offensive line/run game coordinator John Garrison $175,000

• Safeties/special teams coordinator Andy LaRussa $175,000

• Defensive line coach Joe Seumalo $175,000

• Running backs coach Jamie Christian $125,000

• Cornerbacks coach J.D. Williams $120,000

• Quarterbacks coach Ron O’Dell $120,000

• Wide receivers coach Cedric Cormier $112,000

Cormier is the lone holdover from Bobby Hauck’s staff, and the rest come in with years of college coaching experience at other programs. Sanchez said he had had conversations with a lot of people over the years about their interest if he ever got a head-coaching job, but he was still surprised by the volume of attention when it did happen.

“The amount of people who called and inquired about jobs here … it was amazing,” Sanchez said. “I think they know that this is a diamond in the rough.”

Part of the staff’s success with putting together the recruiting class on a truncated schedule was the use of a private plane, something a booster coordinated. That hasn’t happened at UNLV before, or many other Mountain West schools for that matter.

“It starts with things like that,” Sanchez said. “The ability to go from Vegas to Houston, Houston to Arkansas, Arkansas to Washington, Washington to Oakland and Oakland to LA in two days.”

Nonconference schedule is set

The Idaho State game is a done deal and will round out the Rebels’ 2015 nonconference slate after BYU asked to move its trip to Sam Boyd Stadium to either 2016 or 2017.

UNLV will host Idaho State, members of the Big Sky Conference in Division I-AA, on Saturday, Sept. 26. The Rebels’ other nonconference games include road trips to Northern Illinois (Sept. 5) and Michigan (Sept. 19) and home game against UCLA (Sept. 12).

In the Mountain West, the first series of cross-division home-and-homes are done so the Rebels will swap out Mountain Division opponents. That means for the next two years they will face Boise State, Colorado State and Wyoming. In two seasons it will switch again, dropping those teams out and moving back in New Mexico, Air Force and Utah State.

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.