UNLV expects a crowd in the range of 25,000 Saturday when the Rebels host Hawaii, and anything short of it would disappoint given a few factors: UNLV will try to win a fourth straight regular-season game for the first time since 1984, and Hawaii’s healthy and passionate fan base wants nothing more than to trample such thoughts.
This weekend, most everyone here in Albuquerque wants to know if Walter White will die. I’m guessing Bobby Hauck couldn’t give a hoot.
Uncle Si of “Duck Dynasty” is 65 and struggles staying on task, so he often takes midday naps and plays with the security equipment around the family business. I officially am nominating him as special teams coach for UNLV’s football team.
There have been 26 college football seasons since I first rolled across Hoover Dam. There have been three winning ones. It could be argued the Rebels’ run of futility over the past quarter-century is unsurpassed.
I absolutely believe that within the next 80 or so years, perhaps around the time Bobby Hauck’s great-great-great grandson is arm wrestling elks in Montana, UNLV will navigate through a schedule unscathed. Here’s why it could happen this season.
Tim Hauck is 46 and 2½ years younger than his brother, Bobby, but he arrives at UNLV with the sort of experience and clout that immediately earns the respect of those players he will now instruct as the team’s defensive coordinator. On paper, it’s not a good hire. It’s a terrific one.
Last year at this time, Robert Jameson was one of the student equipment managers for the UNLV football team. Now, he’s one of their wide receivers. That’s a pretty cool story.
There might not be any bigger hermits in college athletics than head football coaches, secluded from society in dark film rooms and often absent from social events that don’t include glad-handing those boosters with deep pockets.
Jim Livengood has been in this position before, which is to say when seats for the feast are handed out, his football program is relegated to the kiddies’ table.
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.
