The Marcus Arroyo era at UNLV is over. Arroyo was fired Monday, two days after a rivalry win against Nevada put the Rebels in potential bowl territory as a 5-7 team.
“With our increased expectations at UNLV, we felt a change was in order at this time,” athletic director Erick Harper said in a release.
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Arroyo went 7-23 in three seasons. He lost his first 14 games but closed the 2021 season with a 2-2 run and opened this season with a 4-1 start. But the Rebels went 1-6 down the stretch, including a loss to Hawaii, to miss out on a guaranteed bowl spot.
The talent level increased, as Arroyo signed some of the best recruiting classes in program history, but it wasn’t good enough fast enough. This opens one of the most intriguing but one of the least successful jobs in the Group of 5.
So how good is the UNLV job? What names could get in the mix? Here are some factors to keep in mind.
The Rebels have been down for a long time
UNLV has played in just one bowl game since 2000. The lone winning season in that span came in 2013. It’s played in only four bowl games total, two since 1995. It has one conference championship, a share of the Big West title in 1994.
The Rebels have won three or fewer games 11 times in the past 19 years. No head coach since Tony Knap from 1976-81 has finished his tenure with a winning record, and that was when UNLV transitioned from a Division II team to a Division I independent.
The program improved under Arroyo and might actually end the bowl drought this season, but Harper clearly believes it can be better.
New facilities have changed what could be possible
When Harper said the expectations have increased, that confused a lot of people, given the track record noted above. But the investment in the program with new facilities changed things. In 2019, UNLV opened the 73,000-square-foot Fertitta Football Complex, a $35 million state-of-the-art building, which included a new locker room, a 10,000-square-foot weight room, an academic center, new training facilities and a lot more. It was a needed addition to a program that had long been far behind in facilities. The Rebels also play in the Las Vegas Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium.
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“We have a $35 million practice facility, we play in a $2 billion stadium, we’ve had two of the top recruiting classes and we’re not competing at the level of teams like San Jose State,” Harper told ESPN Radio in Las Vegas. “Those are teams winning championships that we have to put our bar up against.”
As Vegas and the surrounding community has become a booming growth area, the high school talent has improved. For most of the 2010s, there were fewer than 10 in-state players rated three-stars or better in a given year. According to the 247Sports Composite, that jumped to 18 in 2017, and there are 24 in 2023, including four blue-chip prospects. It’s a job that still needs to rely on California in recruiting, but the local talent is getting better too.
Head coaching experience will be an advantage in this search
UNLV’s last two hires were very different. Tony Sanchez was the head coach at powerhouse Bishop Gorman High School in Vegas and had deep ties with the power brokers in the city and around the program. Arroyo was a career college assistant who came from Oregon and never really developed tight connections with people in the community or even in the local media.
Harper told local radio he’d rather not prefer someone learning on the job.
“We’d love to have someone with Division I head coaching experience,” he said. “But if that doesn’t happen, we’re going to hire the best possible coach for our institution.”
The last coaching cycle saw success for Group of 5 programs that hired former head coaches. UConn with Jim Mora and Georgia Southern with Clay Helton each got to 6-6. New Mexico State with Jerry Kill is 5-6, and FIU improved to 4-8 in Mike MacIntyre’s first season. Rather than hiring an up-and-comer on the cheap, some programs that have been so down for so long have turned to experienced coaches to build a foundation.
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So what names could get in the mix?
Beginning with head coaching experience, former TCU head coach Gary Patterson’s name has come up around the job. Patterson, currently on the Texas staff, went 181-78 at TCU from 2001 to 2021 with six top-10 finishes — the resume is obvious. Though he went 14-16 in his final three seasons, his name has been around a few other jobs in this cycle. But late in his tenure at TCU, some stubbornness and a lack of enthusiasm toward embracing NIL led some to wonder if he could adapt to the new world of the sport. Those are definitely aspects UNLV must embrace moving forward. Has a year out of the spotlight changed Patterson’s view of the landscape?
Could Deion Sanders be an option? He’s been offered the Colorado job, been in the mix at USF and received Power 5 interest elsewhere, but would the opportunity to coach in Las Vegas appeal to him? That would be the pitch, the ultimate spotlight in the entertainment capital of the country. Sanders is 26-5 in three seasons as Jackson State’s head coach and has shown the ability to recruit high school players and transfers at a high level.
Kentucky inside linebackers coach Mike Stoops has a long relationship with Harper and has head coaching experience. Stoops was an assistant at Kansas State in the 1990s when Harper was an administrator there, and Harper followed Stoops to Arizona to be his director of football operations from 2004 to 2011. Stoops went 41-50 in eight seasons as UA’s head coach. After he was fired as Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator, Stoops spent two years as an Alabama analyst.
USC defensive backs coach Donte Williams has long been one of the best recruiters on the West Coast, and he got 10 games of experience as USC’s interim head coach last year. This year, the Trojans have the second-most interceptions in the country. The LA native has also coached at Oregon, Arizona, Washington and San Jose State in the region.
Former BYU and Virginia head coach Bronco Mendenhall has been in the mix for jobs in this cycle, including Colorado. Would UNLV interest him? He’s 135-81 as a head coach and stepped away from Virginia on his own last year. UNLV would get him coaching out west again, where most of his career was spent. Mendenhall is a member of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has a large community in Las Vegas. (That’s partly why BYU often plays games in the city.)
Oklahoma State defensive coordinator Derek Mason is a Phoenix native who was in the mix for the Arizona State job that went to Kenny Dillingham. Mason has head coaching experience at Vanderbilt, where he went 27-55 over seven seasons but reached two bowl games. He’s also coached at Stanford, Auburn, Utah and New Mexico State, among other stops.
BYU special teams coordinator/assistant head coach Ed Lamb has been with the Cougars since 2016 and previously spent eight years as Southern Utah’s head coach, with two conference championships and FCS playoff appearances and an 8-4 record in his last season.
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Western FCS head coaches Jay Hill (Weber State) and Troy Taylor (Sacramento State) could get looks as well. Among UNLV alumni, Minnesota Vikings wide receivers coach Keenen McCardell and Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen are former players in the coaching profession who could show interest.
Washington State defensive coordinator Brian Ward is an Arizona native who spent the previous two years at Nevada before joining Wazzu. This year’s Cougars defense ranks 35th nationally in points allowed, an improvement from the year before. Washington co-defensive coordinator William Inge spent the previous two seasons at Fresno State.
(Top photo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
