Culture, not coaching, is UNLV’s problem in football

Prediction: If there isn’t a fundamental change in assistance and vision, if facilities and salaries aren’t upgraded and academic support strengthened, if those qualities that winning college football programs traditionally provide their players and coaches aren’t delivered, if an outside source of funding can’t be found to ensure all of the above occurs, you’re going to read this exact same column five years from now, minus a few name changes.

The next guy will have been fired, too.

The revolving door will have swung open yet again.

Why?

The disaster that is UNLV football isn’t a coaching thing.

It’s a culture thing.

Bobby Hauck resigned Friday from his position as head coach, a move that will become official after his team’s rivalry game tonight against UNR at Sam Boyd Stadium.

His five-year record with the Rebels is 15-48, and he is one loss from securing four two-win seasons, so the fact he and the university are parting ways is hardly a surprise.

He didn’t win nearly enough to keep his job any longer. That’s the short-term truth of it.

“Whenever I’m doing something and it’s not going well, and this is what we have tried to instill into our team, the first place you ought to look at is in the mirror,” Hauck said earlier this week when asked about his job status. “I look in the mirror and say that I haven’t done a good enough job. There is an arms race in college football, and it’s hard to keep up, but I prefer not to focus on the things we don’t have, but rather focus on what we do and enhance it.

“UNLV will ultimately do what is best for UNLV, and so will Bob Hauck. I grew up in a house with a high school coach who from a very young age told us, ‘Boys, there are two types of football coaches. Those who have been fired, and those who will be fired.’ That was my father’s advice to us from about the third grade on. I’m just not one to pass the buck. This is certainly not an easy place to win a lot of games, that’s for sure. It’s not the easiest job in the country.”

Which brings us to the long-term truth of it.

Jeff Horton and John Robinson didn’t forget how to coach. Neither did Mike Sanford. Neither did Hauck. But the credentials and success that brought them to UNLV couldn’t overcome the lack of support the university is able to furnish its program.

The Rebels today are getting destroyed in the arms race that Hauck mentioned, but not just by teams from the power five conferences. Colorado State is winning the battle over them. So, too, is New Mexico. UNLV can’t even keep up with those in the Mountain West it has no business trailing in things that matter to recruits and their families, things such as facilities and training table and academic support and services.

Others are building football complexes and stadiums and state-of-the-art kitchens for their players.

UNLV is doing none of it.

Others have several academic advisers on staff to tutor and guide players.

Hauck had 1½.

It has been this way for some time. Decades. Sanford went 16-43 as coach at UNLV, but it wasn’t what he said on the way out that was wrong. It was what he didn’t say.

He listed all the same things UNLV needed to build a successful program, many it still needs today as Hauck’s tenure ends, but never once did Sanford share any of the blame for losing. He never once acted in the stand-up manner that defined Hauck in the worst of times.

Short of the legislature offering both programs in tonight’s rivalry game tuition waivers (which would save the Rebels athletic department $7 million annually), UNLV must somehow convince those with the means to donate money in support of all football needs.

They need their own version of T. Boone Pickens, although not to the level of the $500 million the business magnate has given Oklahoma State. Maybe it’s not just one person who steps forward for UNLV. Maybe several do. But something has to happen.

This narrative, these problems, continue to be recycled. Nothing changes.

Bobby Hauck is a good man who in times of strife was a stand-up person. He never once passed blame.

He also didn’t stand a prayer of winning consistently at UNLV.

Neither did Horton nor Robinson nor Sanford.

Neither will the next coach, whoever he might be, if things remain as unsupported as they are today.

“I’m disappointed, everybody is disappointed,” UNLV athletic director Tina Kunzer-Murphy said in New York last week while watching the school’s basketball team play Temple. “Our football coaches, our players, they’re great people who work very hard. It’s really tough. From the time I took this job, my goal was to make everything about football better. Everything that is happening around the country in intercollegiate athletics today is based on football. It is really important to us.”

She knows the issues. She understands the challenge.

It’s on her to find the solution. Specifically, the right benefactors.

It’s on her to change the culture.

If not, we will see you back in this space five years from now.

Only the names will have changed.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on “Gridlock,” ESPN 1100 and 98.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.