UNLV’s newest assistant football coach brings hands-on approach

A popular argument against the perceived importance of sacks in football: It is the only statistic used to gauge pass rushers and doesn’t include significant things such as the number of times one pressures the quarterback or how well he plays the run.

That, simply, players are judged on too small a sample size for their overall production.

A counter to that opinion: Alabama led the nation in sacks last season, and Clemson was second.

They met in the College Football Playoff national championship.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle of how often a team puts the opposing quarterback on the ground compared to how many times it makes him uncomfortable enough to throw off his back leg, and the influence each skill has on a team’s win total.

But sacks are never a bad thing for a defense, and UNLV needs to be much better producing them, given it ranked last in the country in 2015 with nine, fewer than 24 players nationally.

Alabama had 52, and while no logical soul would compare in any manner those stopping the ball for the Crimson Tide with those doing so for the Rebels, it’s an enormous disparity between No. 1 and No. 128.

Consider the Mountain West: San Diego State and Air Force each ranked 13th nationally in sacks. They played for the conference championship.

Tony Samuel is intent on making things much better for the Rebels up front defensively, he being the only change this season to the staff of second-year coach Tony Sanchez, who again chose to surround himself with a veteran whose resume suggests someone rich in knowledge and technique.

“I don’t have a real theory on numbers,” Samuel said. “My thinking is, if you get one sack a game for 12 games, you’re considered an elite pass rusher. But what I am looking for is constant pressure. If you get one sack, fine, but if you get 10 pressures in that same game, I’m even happier.”

He is a former head coach at New Mexico State (1997 to 2004) and Southeast Missouri State (2006 to 2013), and it was in Las Cruces where he met a young Sanchez years ago looking to break into the business.

But even when he was in charge of programs, Samuel chose to also act as position coach for the defensive line, which he played at Nebraska in the mid-1970s and was a member of Tom Osborne’s first recruiting class.

He later spent 11 seasons as an assistant in Lincoln, part of consecutive national championship teams in 1994 and 1995 and seven conference titles while mentoring 12 future NFL players. He coached the likes of Broderick Thomas and Mike Croel and Trev Alberts and Grant Wistrom.

“We’re using our hands much better under (Coach Samuel),” junior defensive tackle Mike Hughes Jr. said. “We need to help our coverage guys better than we did last year. That needs to be our focus. If we do, things like sacks and interceptions will come. We have a real two-deep this year. We have five solid guys at tackle alone. That means fresher legs on those third-and-longs.”

You get to those situations by stopping the run, something UNLV also didn’t do well last season, ranking ninth in the conference and 110th nationally by allowing an average of 217.5 yards.

As the season wore on and its line wore down, UNLV’s front found itself a step too late when opposing backs cut into the second level. Over 12 games, the Rebels allowed a 100-yard rusher nine times. Of those nine, they allowed more than 150 to a player five times.

Only one returning defensive lineman for the Rebels — senior Jeremiah Valoaga — was credited with a sack last season. He had 2½.

Length is important for defensive linemen, but perhaps even more so is vision. They need to be quick and yet able to see space around them when a quarterback is pressured and begins to scramble. Those at UNLV need to move more with instinct and less as robots.

These are all skills Samuel continues to work on with players, and fans can get a look at the line and everything else UNLV at Saturday’s first fall scrimmage, scheduled for 9:30 a.m. at Rebel Park.

“We have good, hard-working kids willing to learn,” Samuel said of his defensive front. “We still have a lot of work to do. There is that old saying about there being a short window before your first game, but that also means a long time with a lot of reps.

“Some kids are quiet off the field, and others are jovial. As long as they’re taking care of their business off the field and not getting into trouble, that’s their personality. But on the field, we need to have high-energy tempo. This is a fast, aggressive game, and we have to fit that mold.”

Maybe then, more sacks will come.

Or, more important, constant pressure and more third-and-longs.

Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow on Twitter: @edgraney