Ed Graney is a sports columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, covering a variety of topics and the Las Vegas sports scene.
egraney@reviewjournal.com … @edgraney on Twitter. 702-383-4618
The national glare on college football is its usual powerful November self, what with more BCS updates than holiday sales and those in South Bend buying out the town’s supply of toilet paper to wrap around Charlie Weis’ house and trees and car and anything else connected with the besieged and yet handsomely compensated Notre Dame coach.
SAN DIEGO — In singing, success doesn’t always translate to talent. Tens of thousands have better vocal cords than your Madonnas and Mariah Careys of pop legend.
SAN DIEGO
There’s that child in all of us, that part that never seems to disappear, no matter how much a hairline retreats like a Long March into middle age or how many fewer belt holes are needed to support our trousers.
Memo to the person who keeps official stats for UNLV basketball games: Tre’Von Willis wants to have a little chat.
It will come Saturday evening at San Diego State, the most significant football game UNLV will have played in eight years. But regardless if the Rebels win or lose against the lowly Aztecs, whether they become bowl eligible or finish two games under .500, Mike Sanford’s future as head coach should be even more solidified come Sunday morning.
It’s not often the better coaching job in a UNLV basketball game takes place opposite the Rebels bench.
Randy Couture over the last 15 months learned one or two or 10 valuable lessons but none more important than a simple truism often echoed throughout sports: Play to your strength.
It is in their hands now for the first time in what seems an eternity. Eight years, really. But what a long, painful, frustrating eight it must have been for those who follow UNLV football. Think of the world’s incessant wait for Tom Cruise to take up scientology full time and try ruling the universe in anonymity. That long.
He has made this walk before while thinking of her and will do so again.
The fifth season that could decide Mike Sanford’s future as head football coach at UNLV will arrive with this certainty: The Rebels are solid at a most significant position.
Face it. Watching poker live or on television is hardly like watching Ellen Burstyn in “Requiem for a Dream.” There is the drama of winning millions of dollars and a shiny bracelet, and then there is an electroshock therapy scene that leaves you immobile.
This is how the game is played: A college basketball program signs a highly rated recruit who also considered a program of superior stature and tradition. In this case, Kentucky.
They begin to occur in a college football coaching’s staff third season and increase in the fourth. Measuring games. Those weeks when it is determined where your program stands in relation to the best in its conference. Those weeks when you discover how far you have come and how far you must travel to be considered valid.
