Wins not best way to measure UNLV’s growth

Bobby Hauck knows when the real test comes. When another team is standing on the opposite sideline. When they begin keeping score again.

That last part hasn't worked out well for UNLV football in, well, forever?

It long ago came to that point for the Rebels, where most will judge improvement based solely on number of wins.

Why?

When your program's last winning season rivaled a gallon of gas costing $1.95 (yeah, that long ago), those who believe you can turn the corner dwindle by each blowout defeat.

"I feel like it's the chicken-and-egg syndrome," Hauck said. "When you haven't won as UNLV hasn't, there's always going to be some doubt until you win and do it again and again and again. That said, I feel pretty strongly we can be a good football team. But we're big around here on talk being cheap. Well done is better than well said. We need to win games. This group is determined to do that.

"It has shown up this offseason, will show up this summer when they're on their own and then hopefully show up in the fall."

That's when Hauck's third team at UNLV will begin play, the first two producing a 4-21 record and casting more doubt as to the worthiness of a program that continues to lose games and, more important, dollars for a state university budget hardly offering financial stability.

The reality: Many within athletics see Hauck as UNLV's final chance at sustaining a major sport that becomes less and less relevant with each passing two-win season. The Rebels are a year from competing in a conference - whatever and with whomever it might end up being - that will be no more influential in football than a bug on the windshield of most others.

But with such average opponents also will come better opportunity for success. It's one silver lining around Rebel Park right now.

UNLV had its Spring Showcase on Friday night, and Hauck is convinced within the team that scrimmaged for a few hours exists the sort of desire needed to make the Rebels a competitive side most weeks, the sort of enthusiasm he didn't always notice around this time of year.

"These guys love to play," Hauck said. "I don't think that was exhibited very well the last couple of springs, when it might have been viewed by some as more of a punishment. This group is easy to coach, to teach. We don't have to worry about effort and attention."

I would like for Hauck not to mention one time this coming season about how young his team remains and like for anyone who questions his ability to get it done here to silence such remarks until following a fifth season. There is a reason that in beginning to rank the country's 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams, the Orlando Sentinel this week had UNLV at No. 118.

Maybe that's too low. Maybe the Rebels are more in the 100-105 range. But it's not as though the Florida newspaper missed by 50 or so spots.

Still, people don't want to hear or read about youth when your program's last winning season was in 2000. It's fact. UNLV remains green in key areas. We get it. Stop talking about it.

The same should hold true for any whispers about Hauck's long-term viability. He was deemed by a president and athletic director as the best choice to turn around an awful program, and football is a sport in which multiple recruiting classes are needed to change the culture of losing that engulfs UNLV.

If his players don't run amok and break laws and attend class and act in a responsible manner on and off the field, five years should be the fair measuring stick by which to judge Hauck's coaching ability at this level.

What his team needs to do now is compete more. Far too many weeks have passed under Hauck when the Rebels not only gave themselves zero chance at winning but little of being in the game the final 30 minutes.

People hate to hear it, but it's reality: UNLV football isn't going from terrible to great overnight.

This isn't about, "Let's Run," to an NCAA Tournament.

It's about, "Let's Never Get Embarrassed by the Southern Utahs of the World Again" and in the process try to win five games.

"I've always thought internal pressure is greater than external," Hauck said. "We're all competitive. It's college football. Our goal - to win the conference championship - is always the same. But you have to take incremental steps to get there.

"We talk about others' expectations of us, but we don't beat it to death. I convey to our players all the time that as coaches, we have been on teams expected to win at a high level entering a season that didn't and on teams that weren't expected to perform well that did. At the end of the day, we just all have to do our jobs."

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from noon to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday on "Gridlock," ESPN 1100 and 98.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.