Hauck deserves to savor victory

Bill Ireland won his first against Saint Mary’s, but I think that was before the Gaels started recruiting all those 6-foot-10-inch power forwards from New Zealand.

John Robinson won his first at North Texas, one of those home-and-home agreements UNLV football needs more of nowadays.

Mike Sanford won his first at home against Idaho, back when the Vandals were winning two games a season and the locker room at Lied Athletic Complex was probably just the second worst in college.

Bobby Hauck won his first game as UNLV’s coach Saturday night against a New Mexico team that was all of its predicted dreadful self and then some, the Rebels walking out of Sam Boyd Stadium a 45-10 winner before an announced gathering of 16,961.

There weren’t near that many bodies in seats or otherwise planted around the complex unless two heads were counted for one or the Locomotives were holding a practice on an adjacent field, but those who chose to attend watched UNLV earn a deserved first victory following three losses to open its season.

Everyone has a level. Alabama has one. Ohio State has one. UNLV has one. Brigham Young had one, but then it chose to go independent and now couldn’t beat Palo Verde.

New Mexico has one. Start at the Dead Sea and go lower.

Football teams are not created equal, but this part doesn’t change no matter where your talent suggests you reside in the game’s big picture:

Good teams, or even ones like UNLV that aspire to be so one day, pummel inferior opponents and move on. The Rebels were better prepared, better coached, better at everything than the Lobos besides intentional grounding and blowing coverages.

Somewhere, Brian Urlacher is cowering in shame.

Tell you what, though — even as they were losing to Wisconsin, Utah and Idaho, even as they were making moving the ball 10 yards appear harder than it is watching a New Mexico back run 56 yards to gain 3, the Rebels have kept playing for Hauck.

You can say that should be expected, demanded even of a team playing countless young faces for a coach just now shaping in his mind what he wants this program to resemble.

But losing grinds on teams. When things go bad, what is maximum effort in the first quarter decreases enough by the fourth to make competing impossible.

The Rebels weren’t as good as their first three opponents, and they might not be favored to win another game again this season, but Hauck to this point has done a good job keeping his players strong above the shoulders.

Channing Trotter sat before assembled media last week, looked straight ahead and stood by his preseason promise of UNLV making a bowl game.

He did not blink. He did not budge.

The senior running back was about as matter-of-fact as a guy could be whose team was 0-3 and struggling in almost every phase.

It’s not going to happen, not unless the Rebels are a lot better than they have shown to date, but you wouldn’t want them thinking any other way. That’s a credit to Hauck.

If anything, his first win reminded UNLV fans there is some talent in spots.

Tim Cornett is a freshman running back who’s averaging close to 11 yards per rush and appears to own the kind of speed coaches love. Just a thought: Give him more carries.

I know little about junior cornerback Will Chandler other than every time I watch the kid, he’s making big plays.

Sidney Hodge is a freshman cornerback who put a second-half hit on New Mexico quarterback Tarean Austin that would make a guy rethink his chosen sport, or at least throw his 23rd intentional grounding of the night.

The coming week will arrive, and you will begin hearing about an undefeated UNR team that arrives here Saturday with the nation’s best player (Colin Kaepernick) no one outside state lines seems to hype, about a cannon that is a darker shade of blue than any field this side of Boise, about a rivalry that in recent years has become more a way for the Wolf Pack to pad stats and humiliate the Rebels.

All of that can wait a day.

Hauck jogged to midfield with his arms around a few of his players late Saturday night, another trailing with a Gatorade tub of water to be splashed across the coach’s back, the man in charge having recorded his first victory leading a program at this level.

His team earned it. He deserves to feel good about it.

The frightening game film on Kaepernick will come soon enough.

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