The first tear slid slowly down his right cheek, unhurried in its progress as if every speck of skin should absorb its purpose. The connection between losing and UNLV football was accepted for so long, unfeigned emotion following a defeat had over time become indiscernible.
Well, now it’s official: The big kid with the wide shoulders who supposedly had one foot out the door now has both feet out the door.
The rain clouds have moved away from those storms of disaster that were road losses to Fresno State and Air Force, and light appears to be shining through the mist upon UNLV’s basketball team.
The history of a college basketball program is not unlike the roads and highways and bridges that join towns from one part of the country to the next. Each link serves its own essential purpose, and often many of the more significant ones are overlooked as time passes.
Well, we know this: The suit jacket experiment lasted 20 minutes.
It’s not about talent. Wisconsin always was going to be a much better football team than UNLV on Thursday night. Bigger. Stronger. Faster. Better in every imaginable way.
The first part everyone needs to get over is the denial, the pledges to remain in Las Vegas, to finish his coaching career at UNLV.
It’s all relative, especially when you are in the infant stages of rebuilding a college football program that has been as sound lately as that Disney stock in your deteriorating portfolio.
Chris Ault, UNR’s Hall of Fame football coach, brings to mind the Russian guy who has everything in that DirecTV commercial, only without the Cold War accent and the grammatical errors.
Maybe Wisconsin-UNLV will be another pointless pairing of opposites. The Badgers are 21-point favorites. But Review-Journal sports columnist Matt Youmans says the Rebels have some real hope in the form of new coach Bobby Hauck.
Success was the 19-point lead and not surrendering when it disappeared. Success was discovering the resolve to finish with a win and send a ranked opponent and its arrogant coach packing.
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.
