Risks must be taken to have any shot at success

Two years ago today, I wrote a column suggesting Mike Sanford change his recruiting philosophy when it came to UNLV football, that a history of losing proved the Rebels needed to adopt an approach that pursued more junior college players and transfers.

That they built in a way Dennis Erickson has at other schools.

That they embraced a way of thinking that most programs smartly avoid at all costs because of potentially damaging side effects.

Two years and a coaching change later, nothing is different. UNLV is never going to contend for conference championships and bowl berths by solely trying to match opponents straight-up in recruiting wars for the best high school players.

It's not going to happen. Not here.

To win big, the Rebels must go heavy on risk.

Which brings us to Jeremiah Masoli.

It has been reported that Masoli could enroll at UNLV and possibly play this season, that the former Oregon quarterback -- who was suspended for the 2010 season after pleading guilty to burglary, then dismissed from the program after being cited for marijuana possession -- could land behind center of Bobby Hauck's first Rebels team.

While a prep star in California, Masoli pleaded guilty to robberies in and around the San Mateo area, which got him expelled from Serra High School and time in a juvenile detention center.

Masoli obviously has an issue with taking things that are not his.

"Once you go inside," Masoli told the Eugene Register-Guard in 2009 about his time incarcerated, "you definitely have to grow up quickly."

The Masoli-to-UNLV story appeared more conjecture than anything Wednesday, with Hauck unavailable for comment and no one around UNLV seeming to know much about the rumor.

But whether the player with one year of eligibility remaining arrives at UNLV or not, there couldn't be a better case study for a new coach who many thought when hired would take recruiting risks when trying to build what has been a forgettable program for years.

A truth most people outside athletic departments hate: You have to approach these situations on an individual basis. You have to review and research on a case-by-case manner. Not all risks are worth taking, and yet you can't judge them all the same.

Masoli is an interesting one.

His is some big-time baggage.

His talent is also unquestioned. Oregon played Ohio State in the Rose Bowl in January, and without Masoli at quarterback, the Ducks would have been as close to Pasadena as Cape Cod. He threw for 15 touchdowns and ran for 13 in directing Oregon to the top of the Pac-10. If eligible to play this fall, he would immediately become UNLV's best option at its most important position.

But what is the risk-reward ratio for taking him?

Here is a guy who on one hand could be eligible this fall because he has finished requirements for an undergraduate degree, and on the other pleaded guilty in high school to reportedly robbing people of money at isolated bus stops, then to second-degree burglary in the theft of two laptops and a guitar from a campus fraternity at Oregon.

Who on one hand is said to own some of the best leadership qualities of any Oregon athlete in school history, and on the other responded to being kept on scholarship once suspended by getting busted for pot possession during a traffic stop with a suspended license.

Do you take him for one year and hope he stays out of trouble and away from laptops during news conferences, so that a daunting schedule that looks to have few wins on it instead becomes far more manageable?

Does having a player who would have been among the 2010 Heisman Trophy favorites had he stayed clean at Oregon translate to more high-profile future recruits considering UNLV?

Is it worth for one season possibly upsetting team chemistry built under Hauck during a spring practice that included a two-year starter at quarterback in Omar Clayton?

If there is anything to Masoli coming here, Hauck and athletic director Jim Livengood must answer these and many more questions. Perception about a program is reality when it comes to this stuff. If something goes wrong, it falls back to those in charge. It's all on them.

Jeremiah Masoli might be on his way. There might be nothing to it, and he will land elsewhere. But while this could be the first recruiting risk in Hauck's tenure, it wouldn't come close to being his last.

Two years later, nothing has changed.

UNLV can't win in football by building the conventional way. It has to take risks. It has to judge them on an individual basis.

The key part is deciding if any potential reward is worth it.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.