Rebels coach Sanchez’s leadership commands attention

You know it's sweltering when your iPhone overheats and its screen shows the temperature warning, that yellow triangle with an exclamation point in the middle, suggesting that if you dare push the home button, the ghost of Peter Graves might appear and your phone will self-destruct in a cloud of smoke within 15 seconds.

Which means the conditions at Nellis Air Force Base on Saturday afternoon were exactly as UNLV football coach Tony Sanchez desired.

This was another piece to the puzzle, the next block on which to build and change a culture. The Rebels had their first scrimmage of fall camp on a turf field at a place where any post routes are usually run by an F-16 trying to dodge the enemy at 10,000 feet during combat exercises.

"Before we started, we talked about, 'Look around, look where you are at, think about what their mission is on a daily basis,' " Sanchez said. "At the end of the day, you can train wherever you want. You come here, to the hottest part of town, on purpose.

"We told them to think about how the Air Force doesn't put its guys in comfortable situations. They put them in the hardest situations to make them successful, so when that obstacle comes, they are ready and prepared for it. It's the same thing we are doing. This is the hottest environment we will play in this year, but it's going to help our preparation and toughness building."

I'm sorry, but do these guys really have to play a game and ruin all the fun by smacking us back into reality?

Can't we just listen to Sanchez talk for the next five years?

You can feel safe that one of our most important military homes is being secured by the most competent of airmen. Our host made it a point to say he remembered a tougher level of security for past visits by the media, but I'm pretty sure that was after he looked at us and realized the legend of Capt. Virgil Hilts was secure.

It's tough to gauge much of anything right now for a team not expected to win more than three games, but UNLV ran enough plays to make one point incredibly obvious: It must do anything possible to keep senior quarterback Blake Decker upright and semi-healthy. This is not a part of the depth chart Sanchez wants exposed beyond his starter.

How ironic. On the same week Sanchez dismissed running back and former Alabama player Altee Tenpenny for breaking team rules, he brought the Rebels to about as regimented and disciplined an atmosphere as they could discover across Las Vegas.

Three years from now, maybe the structure is in place for a player such as Tenpenny to survive at UNLV. Maybe the expectations and standards are set and the culture officially changed. But there isn't time to baby-sit now.

There is too much work to do, too many holes to fill, too many of those obstacles to overcome to waste time on anyone who doesn't immediately buy in to the vision Sanchez has offered.

And it's an impressive one.

Cameron Dadgar is a lieutenant colonel at Nellis whom we will forgive for being a Knicks fan because, well, he has spent a majority of his life defending our nation. That, and how much can you hold against a guy who actually admits to rooting for Purdue football?

He was with Sanchez at Nellis recently when the coach addressed a group of airmen and officials on leadership, and to suggest Dadgar was impressed is to suggest you could have cooked enough eggs and bacon on the end zone turf Saturday to feed all squadrons.

"(Sanchez) could have been a military leader," Dadgar said. "He preaches everything that we preach about what makes a successful leader — integrity, building a positive attitude, tackling things the right way, doing things the right way all the time. It becomes infectious to people around him. They want to be like that as well. He's pretty unique.

"Every leader has their own template, and when he starts talking, it's about an entire culture based on excellence. He didn't talk about yards and talent. I'm sure at some point he cares about those things and points on a scoreboard, but it was more about having that integrity in all that you do. It's fantastic that he brought the team out here, to give some of their time and energy to the military is amazing."

It's another piece, the next block. Nellis is a base of 9,000 transient folks, meaning there is constantly a new crop arriving from all parts of the world who might not have a clue about UNLV football. They might only know Las Vegas for the Strip.

In reaching out and making a connection, Sanchez is also building his program's fan base, which has hardly boasted a robust core of devoted souls.

"He is a positive ambassador for the city as well," Dadgar said.

Slowly, surely, in a sweltering manner defined by a yellow triangle with an exclamation point in the middle, a culture changes.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist 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 him on Twitter: @edgraney