Robinson Is Up to Challenge

It is just another bowl game, a relative bottom-feeder among the 25 now available for public consumption, yet tonight’s Las Vegas Bowl at Sam Boyd Stadium finds Coach John Robinson paraphrasing Charles Dickens.

“It’s the best of times,” Robinson boasted at the Las Vegas Bowl kickoff news conference.

Not necessarily the best of teams, mind you.

Robinson’s squad, Nevada Las Vegas, needed a 34-32 victory over Hawaii to finish 7-5 and qualify for this bowl, while opponent Arkansas had to win its last two games to finish 6-5.

The best stories, however, are not always assigned the best bowls.

Three years after getting fired at USC, which just last week replaced his replacement, the 65-year-old Robinson has completed a turnaround at UNLV few thought possible, leading the 0-11 team he inherited in 1999 to a hometown bowl game in his second season.

Robinson’s 7-1 bowl mark, which includes a 4-0 record in the Rose, is the best among Division I-A coaches with a minimum of eight appearances.

Yet, none of those bowls could be as satisfying as coaxing UNLV to this one, given the context of his career.

Robinson took the UNLV job at some risk to his legacy.

He was 104-35-4 in two stints with the Trojans and 79-74 in nine seasons with the Rams, but was fired from both posts.

Robinson could have comfortably served out his golden years as a football analyst, but the UNLV opportunity intrigued him.

The Rebels had lost 16 consecutive games when Robinson landed in Las Vegas, yet he saw nothing but bright lights.

After going 3-8 last year, Robinson has turned UNLV around a year ahead of his schedule because his reputation was enough to attract enough good players fast enough--among them quarterback Jason Thomas, whom Robinson recruited at USC, and Jeremi Rudolph, a transfer from Southwest Mississippi Community College who this year became UNLV’s first 1,000-yard rusher since Ickey Woods in 1987.

Rudolph? At Apopka High in Florida, he finished runner-up to Daunte Culpepper for the state’s Mr. Football Award. Peter Warrick finished third.

This year’s bowl ride has been a joy ride. UNLV might have finished 9-3 if not for two heartbreaking losses. The first was a 20-19 defeat at Colorado State on Oct. 14 in which UNLV missed two extra points. Robinson’s team also lost at Mississippi, 43-40, in overtime.

UNLV appeared to have played itself out of the bowl mix falling to 4-5 after a 38-16 loss to Utah on Nov. 4.

But three consecutive wins against New Mexico, San Diego State and Hawaii made the Rebels bowl eligible. UNLV had to win seven games because Hawaii was a 12th game on the schedule.

“The look in our eye after the Hawaii game was fun,” Robinson said. “Whenever you win a close game or a big game the coach always comes in and says, ‘Well, we gotta play next week so knock it off and get serious.’ They wouldn’t even listen to me after the game. They celebrated for a half hour in the locker room because they’d never done anything like this before.”

Robinson said it was that locker room feeling that made him return.

“College football has been my life,” he said. “I took a couple of years of missionary work in the NFL but I got back into college coaching. I honestly believe that one of my best years has been this one because of the players involved.”

The knock on Robinson at USC the second time around was he did not seem as involved or interested.

In a recent interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Robinson acknowledged the challenge of the UNLV job inspired him.

“I’m always at my best when I’m backed up and then have to prove it,” Robinson said. “I think subconsciously people who are competitive in their lives put themselves in that position of saying there is no parachute here. You’ve just got to go. And I’ve failed. When I’ve looked back at failures, it’s because I have lost focus or I was distracted, which is much the same thing.”

Arkansas isn’t a bad story, either. The Razorbacks have been decimated by injuries, losing 10 players to season-ending injuries since practice began in August.

Arkansas fell to 4-5 after four consecutive Southeastern Conference losses to South Carolina, Auburn, Mississippi and Tennessee, but then rallied to beat Mississippi State and Louisiana State to become bowl qualified.

Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt’s turnaround job is at least equal to Robinson’s. Nutt, who was raised in Little Rock and played quarterback for the Razorbacks, inherited a team that had won eight games in two years before he arrived in 1998. Nutt has led Arkansas to a three-year record of 23-12 and bowl appearances each season.