Where credit is due

By Ron Kantowski

Monday, May 12, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It has been four years since John Robinson coached the UNLV football team and Mike Sanford, the current UNLV coach, is still blaming him for what’s wrong with it. But hey, what are friends for? When Sanford took the job, he claimed he and Robinson were best buds.

Last week, when UNLV lost a football scholarship because of a subpar NCAA Academic Progress Rate, Sanford basically said it was because the players he inherited from Robinson four years ago were a bunch of dummies. UNLV’s APR in Robinson’s last year was 889; now it’s 905. Last year it supposedly was above 950. So how is this Robinson’s fault?

Anyway, that’s not what this is about. What this is mostly about is Robinson being bypassed for the College Football Hall of Fame for John Cooper. As an acquaintance who knows more about college football than I do — he went to Florida — so aptly put it, “Cooper over Robinson is a real head-scratcher.”

Cooper’s claim to (the hall of) fame was beating Michigan in the Rose Bowl when he was at Arizona State. Like that’s hard to do. Too bad he couldn’t do it at Ohio State. He was 2-10-1 against the Wolverines and never won an outright Big Ten title. His record in bowl games was a similarly dismal 3-7. Moreover, he nearly turned The Ohio State University into the Ohio State Penitentiary.

He ultimately was forced to resign one of the best jobs in the land amid his players’ academic and discipline problems.

Cooper’s career coaching record is 192-84-6; Robinson’s is 132-77-4. But Robinson didn’t get to play Indiana every year. His USC teams won four Rose Bowls (two more than Cooper) and the 1978 national championship (one more than Cooper).

And Cooper didn’t coach UNLV.

If Halls of Fame and such meant anything to Robinson, he never would have agreed to take over a UNLV football program that was 0-11 the year before and hadn’t won a football game since leather helmets were in vogue. (Actually, it was 16 consecutive losses, 26 in a row on the road.) And Mike Sanford thinks he inherited a mess.

Robinson’s six-year record at UNLV was 28-42-0. He won more games than any other coach in UNLV’s football history, other than Tony Knap. Yet I would be willing to bet that the only thing keeping him out of South Bend (not quite the same ring as Cooperstown or Canton now, is it?) is his record here.

I beg to differ. I think what he accomplished here merits induction into the College Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

Granted, there were times when I got bored with all those off-tackle runs, too. But, hey, at least it was his offense. He won his share of games and was competitive in a lot of the others. He beat a team from the big, bad Big Ten that was ranked No. 14 in the land. At their place. In front of 78,043 fans. By three touchdowns.

Two years after the Rebels were 0-11, they were 8-5 under Robinson. They won a bowl game. They destroyed Arkansas, 31-14. If you were there, you remember it well. Robinson took his reputation and a couple of Pac-10 rejects and a bunch of guys who tried hard to block and tackle and threw it all into a helmet on a chilly December evening. He made magic that night.

It didn’t last. It rarely does. But the press box on top of Sam Boyd Stadium has lasted. The field turf is still there. The state of the art practice field has held up well. Were it not for Robinson, UNLV probably wouldn’t have any of those things.

Robinson also brought something to the football program that can’t be measured in wins and losses and luxury boxes on the 50-yard line. He brought it instant credibility.

When Mike Sanford restores it, he can blame John Robinson for low graduation rates and a losing mentality and the high price of gas and anything else he wants.