User profile

ol66

I live in Reno and watch UNLV every week on my 52-inch hi-def. I can always find the UNLV game on the many channels that show college football.
I read the Sun's and R-J's UNLV stories every day on the Web sites.

I don't know the inside information about UNLV. But there is something intrinsically wrong with this team that goes deeper than a first-year coach trying to turn it around.

Over time, I have realized that it doesn't matter who the coach is, UNLV does a poor job of recruiting local talent. And the local talent in Las Vegas is really, really good. Just listen to Tom Lemming on the CBS Sports channel. Look at all the Las Vegas kids who proudly represent their home city at many big-time schools.

UNLV looked really, really bad against Idaho, a team that will finish behind Boise, Nevada, Fresno and maybe Hawai'i in the WAC.

Please just throw the ball to Phillip Payne every play, please. He'll find a way to catch it.

Bobby Huack is stuck with Sanford's players and maybe will do a great job recruiting to turn the program around. But a Big Sky Conference coaching staff and Big Sky recruiting connections will not get it done in the Mountain West Conference. If he focused on Las Vegas and got the best kids, he'd have a championship caliber team. I don't blame Las Vegas kids for leaving. Why would they want to play at UNLV under present conditions? (I've never understood the location of the studium.) But there are so many good and hungry players in Las Vegas that are really good, when you take a look at some of the past and present rosters at schools like Oklahoma, Utah, Oregon State and Nevada.

I look at Las Vegas as the Miami of the west -- full of talented high school players who leave town to play college ball. Former coach Howard Schnellenberger got the local kids and won a national championship. UNLV's coaching staff should learn a lesson of history.

The revolving door of head coaches at UNLV does little to establish trustful local recruiting conmtacts, I would assume.
I would also assume that Las Vegas's rep as Sin City is something recruiters must overcome with some parents. It seems like a lot of people get shot by cops in Las Vegas, from reading news reports.

Ryan Greene does a good job covering this team.

As far as the coach throwing F-bombs, hey lots of coaches cuss. Look at Rex Ryan on "Hard Knocks."

I watched on TV from Reno and it was distressing that Hauck's F-bomb tirade in the 2nd half looked like he was having a melt down. Building this program is going to be tough and to lose it like that in Game No. 1 as the Rebs' coach may be a concern.

Also, Big Sky Conference coaches who make the step up to the Mountain West or Pac-10 have not done well lately. Joe Glenn, who won the 2002 I-AA national title at Montana, was fired at Wyoming after the 2008 season, although he had one good year with the Cowboys, winning the Las Vegas Bowl in 2004.

Washington State Coach Paul Wulff, who came from the Big Sky's Eastern Washington, is a complete disaster. His win percentage is the worst in school history.

It is obvious that UNLV does not have the players yet to run a smash-mouth type of offense. Too bad UNLV doesn't have Las Vegas product Mike Ball, who is second-string up here in Reno with the Wolf Pack.

I watched on TV from Reno. UNLV still sucks. The best part was seeing Bobby Hauck's f-bomb-laced tirade in the second half. The Fremont Cannon will stay with the University of Nevada.

Look at his past dealings with the student newspaper at Montana.

He's a jerk.

The Jim Gibbons of football coaches.