Just like Padres, Rebels’ eulogy already written

There once was a sports columnist in San Diego, having passed years ago, who annually would preview the Padres season in the same manner. Almost word for word. This is back when the Padres stunk even more than they do now.

He would write the same eulogy before a pitch was thrown each April, so much that a joke around the office was that editors merely should change the date and a few names and run the exact column year after year because no one would be the wiser.

Readers just expected things to go bad.

This is the seventh time I will write on a season opener for UNLV football. Suddenly, those jokes about the guy in San Diego don't seem as funny.

More like prophetic.

Word is, the Rebels are better. That those who witnessed UNLV in between sips of cherry rickys and train rides at camp in Ely saw a team capable of both beating Minnesota tonight and of competing deeper into games on a weekly basis than it has in some time.

That in his third season as UNLV's head coach, Bobby Hauck might field a side that won't hand out points and yards like Costco does samples.

My take: A standing-room-only crowd isn't expected at Sam Boyd Stadium to watch the Rebels and Gophers, mostly because when it comes to UNLV football, local fans are tired of the whole tease-before-disappointment truth that has defined the Rebels for more than a decade.

You can't blame them. Most can read scoreboards.

"Certainly, we want more wins than we've had, that goes without saying," Hauck said. "Nobody here is happy with our record. But we've got a team that has put in a lot of work, that likes to play. We have to measure success both in terms of wins, but also in terms of playing better, being more competitive."

This is what UNLV athletic director Jim Livengood wants to see, what should be expected from a coach in his third season of a program that won 16 games the five years prior to his arrival. Progress.

I have no idea if Hauck can coach at this level. No one does. He is 4-21 in two seasons, meaning the jury isn't just out on him, it's sequestered somewhere near Moscow.

But any whispers about his job status, and there have been more than a few heading into this season, should be quieted for the sake of, well, common sense.

College football programs that make it a habit of changing head coaches every three years are destined either to continue losing or find themselves on NCAA probation for the sins of how quick fixes often transpire.

If his players attend class and keep their names out of police blotters, if they work hard on the field and don't act like knuckleheads off it, if the coaching staff's focus is on breaking down film and not rules, forming a final conclusion on Hauck's worthiness to lead UNLV shouldn't be made until after a fifth season.

It's a tough pill of reality to swallow for those being asked to purchase tickets each season. It's also the right one.

"There is no specific number as to how many" games Hauck must win, Livengood said. "I think we have to show growth, and I think we will. Bobby has recruited better. The team I saw (in Ely) was better in all areas compared to his first two here. I believe in Bobby as much or more today than the day I hired him.

"When I look back on my career, there have been times where I made some decisions regarding (coaches) too soon. I really believe this is a time for patience. We are going to be better. There is great hope for success. But I realize, and so does Bobby, that always hoping things will get better can only last so long."

Hauck will start a redshirt freshman quarterback tonight, the eighth time in nine seasons UNLV will feature a new name at the game's most important position to begin a season, and not because a string of senior All-Americans has been strolling in and out of Rebel Park.

People who make a living at knowing more about these things than we do have set the over-under for wins at 2½. The word is that UNLV is better than that. The first opportunity to prove it comes at home against a Big Ten Conference team that has won six games the past two seasons and whose own over-under is hardly a Rose Bowl-worthy 5½.

If it's true that change is the best motivator for progress, there is no better time than now for UNLV to begin such a conversion.

We've seen the other side far too long.

Written it to death, even.

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.