Sanchez takes long road for first UNLV recruiting class

The tweet went out the morning of Jan. 26 of a photo of UNLV coach Tony Sanchez and his assistants on a private plane heading out on a recruiting trip.

Most people who follow Rebels football take the photo as a sign of a program finally getting off the ground. More importantly, recruits saw the photo, and the tweet was part of a massive effort to make an impression through social media.

As Sanchez and his staff have put together the first recruiting class under his watch, they have used whatever resources are at their disposal.

“They won’t win a lot of battles with Pac-12 programs, so what Tony and his staff have to do is find new ways to find their guys,” said Blair Angulo, the Rivals.com West Coast analyst. “Use Twitter as a platform. Use social media to help them recruit. That’s going to be key for them.”

Sanchez announces his class at 3 p.m. today. He cannot comment on the specifics of the class until that time.

It was a class that was still coming together with two late additions, including cornerback Darius Mouton (5 feet 11 inches, 170 pounds), the latest recruit out of Houston’s North Shore High School. Running back Tim Cornett and wide receiver Devante Davis also played at North Shore and went on to star at UNLV.

Mouton is a three-star prospect, according to ESPN.com, and Rivals reported he was offered scholarships by Colorado, Colorado State, Indiana, Iowa State, UNR, Utah and Washington State, among others.

UNLV also picked up Folsom (Calif.) High linebacker Bailey Laolagi (6-1, 205), who had committed to Sacramento State.

Because Sanchez wasn’t hired until Dec. 16, he got a late start hitting the road in recruiting. UNLV’s coaches weren’t allowed to take their first recruiting trips until Jan. 15, and Sanchez flew to Hawaii that day. Since then, he’s been as far east at Bentonville, Ark., and as far northwest as Seattle, while also making stops in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston and Oakland, Calif.

He and his coaches have tweeted out photos of their trips as well as shots of the new Rebels uniforms, and whenever a commitment comes through, Sanchez tweets out “#HeyReb”.

“I know what kids like,” Sanchez said. “I’ve seen it. I’ve been around it. I’ve watched them go through this process very intimately over the last six years (at Bishop Gorman High School). You know what gets their attention. The kids are glued to their phones. They’re glued to social media. It’s part of their lives. You’ve got to be out there, and you’ve got to be active on it.

“We need to brand UNLV football. What is our brand? We haven’t really had one. Part of the way you do that is through social media.”

To build future classes, Sanchez knows players will need to see more than tweets of coaches on planes, and is working to upgrade the program in other ways.

An unnamed donor — it wasn’t from the Fertitta family, which has been linked closely to Sanchez — contributed toward a $142,000 sound system for the practice fields. It’s a system used at Oregon, UCLA and Utah, and Sanchez said the music will be used for his high-tempo practices. Crowd noise also can be piped in, and coaches can set a countdown clock for each period and adjust as needed. Sanchez was known for his precision practices at Gorman.

The UNLV Football Foundation also donated about $100,000 for improvements to the coaches’ offices, upgrades to the locker room and assistance for academics.

A new $30 million to $35 million building next to the practice fields that also could be used by other sports is in the planning stages.

Sanchez wants to make this program almost completely unrecognizable from its previous years of largely neglect.

He has placed this message inside the locker room: “If you continue to do the same thing that you have always done, you will get the same result. Guaranteed!”

With the announcement of his first recruiting class, Sanchez hopes that’s a message that resonates.

“We’ve got to be able to build this football program and be successful,” he said. “If we can do that here, how much is that going to benefit everybody? You talk about conference expansion. Those things are happening. Why should we not be in that conversation?

“If we can build football up, forget about it. It’s a game-changer.”

Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow him on Twitter: @markanderson65.