Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Ex-Rebels coach landed on feet at Wisconsin

When UNLV takes the field Saturday morning to play Wisconsin, it will be almost five years to the day since the Rebels' last appearance at Camp Randall Stadium.

Jeff Horton remembers that afternoon well. Now the Wisconsin quarterbacks coach, Horton was standing on the other sideline for that game as the head coach of UNLV.

"I remember early in the game Talance (Sawyer) tipped up a pass into the air that Ted Darnell ran like 60 yards with for a touchdown to put us up 7-0," Horton said this week from Madison. "I remember Chris Hayward was making his first start at quarterback and drove us back down the field and hit Damon Williams around the 10-yard line. It looked like he was going to go in and put us up 14-0 but he got hit and fumbled."

What happened after that?

"I try not to think about that," Horton said with a laugh.

What happened is that the Ron Dayne-led Badgers would go on to score 52 consecutive points en route to an easy 52-7 victory. Wisconsin would go on to an 11-1 record and a 38-31 Rose Bowl victory against UCLA.

The Rebels would finish 0-11 that season and extend their losing streak to 16 games. Horton was fired just before a season-ending 41-18 loss to Dennis Franchione's TCU Horned Frogs who featured at the time a pretty fair sophomore fullback named LaDanian Tomlinson.

Horton landed on his feet, however, when he got an assistant's job as quarterback coach at Wisconsin a few months later (some might argue it actually was a step up.) He drew kudos for his development of Brooks Bollinger, who was named the Big Ten freshman of the year in 1999 and was a sixth round draft pick of the New York Jets last spring.

Now Horton is in charge of grooming Bollinger's longtime backup, Jim Sorgi. So far, so good. Sorgi rallied the Badgers in the fourth quarter to a 24-17 victory at West Virginia in the season-opener and then followed that up with a career-high 281 yards passing last week against Akron including a school record-setting 99-yard touchdown pass to Lee Evans for the game-clincher.

"I'm really excited about him," Horton said of Sorgi, who stands 6-foot-5. "He's played a lot for us in the past. He threw for over 2,000 yards coming into the season. But this is the first time that this is his team so to speak. He's been very efficient and done a great job of protecting the football. He hasn't gotten out of sync. In the past he was kind of a gunslinger type."

And despite the fact he already ranks 10th on Wisconsin's career passing list with 2,743 yards and No. 1 in school history with a 136.1 pass efficiency rating, Sorgi was winless as a starting quarterback until the memorable comeback at Morgantown.

"The big question coming into the season and the one everybody was always asking was could he win as a starter?," Horton said. "He was 0-5 as a starter coming into this season. Then to come back and win on the road in the fourth quarter in a tough environment like West Virginia was huge. He got that monkey off of his back."

In a way Horton also kind of got the UNLV monkey off his back last year when the Badgers defeated the Rebels, 27-7, in the Blackout Bowl at Sam Boyd Stadium. A number of Rebels players made a point to seek out their old coach before and after that game to thank him for recruiting them to UNLV.

That won't be the case this year, however. The only player with Horton ties is Hayward, who is now a graduate assistant on John Robinson's staff.

"Going out there last year, my first time out there coaching in Las Vegas, there were a lot of emotions," Horton said. "This time it's more businesslike. Things are not as tense. I'm just focusing on preparing for the game this week."

Horton, 46, said he misses Las Vegas but makes it a point to come out each spring "to thaw out." He said he hasn't been by Rebel Park since he was fired.

"I really haven't seen their new facilites other than when we're driving past there on the way from the airport or flying over it," he said. "I looked down and saw the new practices fields and the new softball stadium and it was great to see. Coach Robinson is doing a great job of building that program the right way and good things are on the horizon there."

But UNLV still has a very long ways to go to match the football tradition and atmosphere of Camp Randall Stadium on a Saturday afternoon.

"Game day here is special," Horton said. "It's one of the really great atmosphere's in college football. It will be great for both teams to play in on Saturday."

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