In a time when bells and whistles of extravagant and opulent levels define the arms race within college football, UNLV on Tuesday took a gigantic leap in terms of relevance and commitment to success in announcing the single largest gift in program history.
UNLV offered far too many errors and missed way too many tackles to think it could depart the Rose Bowl a winner, falling to UCLA 42-21 before an announced crowd of 63,712.
Tony Sanchez is thankful Saturday for the depth his roster appears to feature in the backfield. In routing Jackson State by 50 points to open its season last week, UNLV had five backs gain at least 30 yards.
You never argue with confidence wins defined by video game numbers. They’re part of the process, too, along with recruiting better players and building better facilities and instilling a better mindset when believing success is possible.
There is first another 12-game schedule to navigate, and UNLV is hardly an easy book in which to predict an ending. The Rebels will be deeper than last season because it’s impossible not to be.
This is about the haves and have-nots of college athletics, and which side everyone wants to be on before the landscape changes forever and those not included are shoved aside for good.
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.
Keith Belton will have as much to say about how improved the Rebels are this season and beyond as anyone else, his responsibility to grow the physiques of boys into men and men into bigger men.
Months of whispers became public Thursday when UNLV president Len Jessup said the school has raised $5 million to $6 million toward building an on-campus football facility.
The financial impact on what a stadium would mean to UNLV was discussed at different points of Thursday’s gathering, but this remains a secondary and yet highly significant element: How big a part could a stadium play in securing the Rebels’ membership in a Power 5 conference?
Regents should have zero influence when it comes to those a university hires to run athletic programs, and that includes voting to approve the contracts offered coaches.
The win total released last week by the Golden Nugget for UNLV in 2016 would spell doom and gloom at countless programs across the country, but it should produce a different reaction in Las Vegas.
This is no Iowa cornfield, and the only farming I have done lately is to roll a broken lawn mower out to the curb for a garage sale, but if you close your eyes and imagine what more than $1 billion might deliver Las Vegas in terms of a domed stadium, you just might see all that Ray Kinsella built and more.
It was at this time last year in a ballroom at the Phoenix Convention Center when Roger Goodell was posed a familiar question at his annual state of the league address at the Super Bowl: Did the commissioner think Las Vegas could sustain an NFL team?
I have never been one of those anti-bowl game guys. Never been one to care much about how many postseason college football affairs are played. But when the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl kicks off today in Tucson, the perception of Mountain West football will endure a devastating punch to the gut.
