Joe Santoro: Don’t look now, but Rebels getting serious about football

Sports Fodder:

The Nevada Wolf Pack’s greatest fear the past six decades or so might be finally coming true. The UNLV Rebels, who traditionally have been convinced the letter F in football stands for folly, fiasco, farce and failure, seem to be getting serious about the sport. This is the Pack’s nightmare coming to life. The Wolf Pack has made no secret it has always been envious and jealous of UNLV’s vast (compared to Nevada) financial athletic resources. But the Pack was able to sleep at night knowing the Rebels had no clue how to use those resources when it came to football. UNLV, the Wolf Pack was convinced, was the annoying younger-but-much-larger brother who woke up one day, discovered it won the lottery and then proceeded to spend its money on video games, Air Jordans, celebrity-endorsed vodka and showgirls. They were annoying, yes, but harmless.

Well, the Rebels have become annoying and dangerous. Think Elon Musk buying Twitter was annoying? Well, how about the Rebels trying to buy Mountain West and state of Nevada football? The Rebels, likely in an effort to appease their deep-pocketed boosters who might be getting bored, are throwing their impressive financial muscles at the sport. Over the last two weeks UNLV fired head coach Marcus Arroyo (agreeing to pay him a $2.3 million buyout) and then hired Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom at roughly $10 million over the next five years. The days of the Rebels hiring former high school (Tony Sanchez) and Division I-AA/FCS head coaches (Bobby Hauck), disposable Wolf Pack head coaches (Jeff Horton) and former Rose Bowl champs (John Robinson), appear to be over. This is getting serious down south. Don’t be surprised if they toss a pair of solid gold wheels on the Fremont Cannon they now own just to show off and taunt the Pack. The Wolf Pack, of course, can’t compete with all those UNLV resources off the field. And if Odom turns out to be the knight in shining red armor the Rebels have been looking for the last six decades, the Pack also won’t be able to compete with them on the field.

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Yes, we understand, we’ve heard all this UNLV bluster before. It’s what the Rebs do. If you don’t brag, show off, flash your bling for everyone to see and strut your stuff in Las Vegas, well, they throw you out of town, make you give back your showgirls and force you to go live in Beatty. But this time they might have gotten it right. Firing Arroyo was surprising, needless, unnecessary, cruel and cold. But that’s what people with too much money do. They do what they want when they want to do it. But the hiring of Odom serves notice that the Rebels might finally know what they are doing. First-year UNLV athletic director Erick Harper wanted his guy in charge of his football program, so he dumped Arroyo and went out and grabbed Odom. The 46-year-old Odom is a hard-nosed, take-no-prisoners, gritty coach with credentials that could transform the Rebels whether they like it or not. Odom, Missouri’s head coach from 2016-19 (25-25 record), is the first head coach the Rebels have hired with previous head coaching experience since John Robinson (1999-2004). So, yes, he’s not some out-of-town Las Vegas tourist who simply got lucky at the blackjack table one night (like Horton, Sanchez, Hauck) and was handed a job he can’t handle. Odom can handle this, likely much better than Robinson (who went 28-42), who was just looking for an easy paycheck and a soft transition into retirement. Do you think Robinson was motivated to transform Rebel football? Robinson on the Rebel sideline always looked like a lost soul from Los Angeles waiting for his tour bus to bring him back home after a long, frustrating gambling weekend. Odom, who did his best to rebuild Missouri’s program, comes to Las Vegas with his head coaching career on the line. He’s motivated, determined and reborn as a head coach. He’s dangerous, Pack fans.

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UNLV, of course, is the place where head coaching careers come to die. The Rebels have had just one winning season (a mediocre 7-6 in 2013) since 2000. There was just one other winning season (7-5 in 1994) from 1986 through 1999. The job ate up and spit out Wayne Nunnely, Jim Strong, Horton, Robinson, Mike Sanford, Hauck and Sanchez the last 40 or so years. Arroyo stayed positive and determined the last three years but even he lost his first 14 games and six of his last seven. He somehow won six-of-nine from late 2021 to mid-season this year, but his coaching resume now has an unsightly 7-23 career record as head coach. That’s what UNLV can do to a head coach. It chokes the head coaching dreams right out of you. So why is Odom in Las Vegas? Did he win the job on a game show? Well, it’s not about the money. Odom was a well-respected defensive coordinator in the SEC, actually earning more (about $100,000) a year at Arkansas than what he’ll make his first two years at UNLV. He could have gone to most any Power Five school as a defensive coordinator and made more money than what he’ll make at UNLV. So Odom could be committing head coaching suicide at UNLV. And he wouldn’t be the first. Just four of the previous 12 UNLV head coaches got out of Rebel hell with a winning record (Bill Ireland, Ron Meyer, Tony Knap and Harvey Hyde, from 1968-85). But even Hyde isn’t officially a winning coach since the NCAA eventually took 18 of his 26 victories away. The last eight Rebel coaches, starting with Wayne Nunnely in 1986, all left town officially with their red tail between their legs.

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It hasn’t taken long for Steve Alford to help Wolf Pack fans forget last season’s 13-18 mess. Alford rebuilt the roster this past off-season and has squeezed eight wins out of the first 10 games this year. This is why you hire a veteran, proven head coach like Alford. Veteran, proven head coaches know how to stop the bleeding. They don’t let one 13-18 season turn into three or four in a row. Yes, Alford kind of had a what-the-heck-did-I-do-to-my-career John Robinson-in-UNLV vibe going last year. But Sam Alford and Bobby Knight didn’t raise a quitter. Alford went right back to work this off-season and, as things stand now, turned last year’s mess into this year’s feel-good story. He added a savvy veteran from Oregon State (Jarod Lucas) as well as promising freshmen (Trey Pettigrew, Darrion Williams, Nick Davidson) who have already contributed, and mixed them in perfectly with holdovers like Kenan Blackshear, Tre Coleman and Will Baker and convinced them all that last year was just fake news. How long will the good feeling’s last this year? Nobody knows that right now. This team, because of injuries, isn’t overly talented or deep. But at least it will be fun and interesting to find out. That alone is a breath of fresh air for Pack fans, given how last basketball season turned out, followed by this past Wolf Pack football season.

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Wolf Pack football, on the other hand, continues to get bad news. As predicted, the dreaded transfer portal has turned out to be an extension of the bad news followed by more bad news trend that started with the team losing its last 10 games. The Pack’s two best offensive linemen, Grant Starck and Aaron Frost, have already jumped into the transfer portal. Frost, if you can believe his Twitter account, has already gotten offers from the likes of Syracuse, Missouri, Mississippi State, Arizona State, Arizona, Oregon, Oregon State and, of course, Colorado State. Don’t be shocked if both Frost, who sat out all of the 2022 season with an injury, and Starck end up in Colorado State to play for former Pack coach Jay Norvell.

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The offensive line has been the center of Pack attention since the season ended. The Pack announced this week that Angus McClure is coming back for his third term at Nevada to coach the offensive line, replacing Douglas High and Wolf Pack grad Jeff Nady. McClure’s hiring is a bit odd, given that McClure (and offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave) was abruptly fired as Cal’s offensive line coach this past fall even before the season ended. The Golden Bears couldn’t even wait until the season ended to get rid of him. McClure, though, is certainly qualified to coach Mountain West offensive lineman, having already done it at Nevada under Norvell in 2018 and 2019. His return also shouldn’t be all that shocking, since he coached with Wilson at Nevada in 1996 (McClure was the tight ends coach) and with Nevada’s Director of Football Operations, Jim Mastro, at UCLA in 2011. Norvell hired him at Nevada in 2018 likely because the two coached together on Nebraska’s staff in 2004 and 2005 and at UCLA in 2007. That’s how college football works. Coaches hire their friends until, of course, the athletic director fires them.