From the day he was hired, Tony Sanchez was a ‘Hail Mary’ head coach for UNLV. Fans buzzed, hoping that hiring a coach straight from high school, albeit an elite one, to man a Division-I FBS program meant UNLV would become a feeder for the best local prep football powerhouse Bishop Gorman High School had to offer.
Since he’s taken the reins, they have not landed a single impact recruit from Sanchez’s old stomping ground and he’s underperformed in the four areas in which a college coach can be measured — total wins, bowl appearances, top recruits, and NFL players produced. While the Rebels football program has improved from former head coach Bobby Hauck’s final season when the team went 2–11, they have seen slow growth on a yearly basis.
Sanchez’s Rebels went 3–9 in his first season in 2015, before going 4–8 and 5–7 in the next two years. While this is theoretical growth that fans can latch on to, there’s no reason to believe he’ll make them a bowl eligible six-win team in 2018 or a seven-win team the season after. Some may even believe this team has the chance to be another Vegas Golden Knights-esque “Cinderella Story.”
Going into the 2018 season, he is ranked 113 out of 122 active Division-I coaches with previous head coaching experiences, tied withGeorgia Southern University’s Chad Lunsford, in winning percentage. Sanchez’s .333 winning percentage is the highest of any UNLV football coach since John Robinson, who led the team from 1999–2004 and was at the helm for the Rebels most recent bowl victory.
Since Sanchez hasn’t led UNLV to a six-win season, he has yet to bring them to a postseason bowl. The last bowl appearance for the Rebels was under Hauck in the 2013–14 season. When it came to recruiting, Sanchez’s contacts and relationships at Bishop Gorman were believed to give him and UNLV an upper hand in recruiting.
With Sanchez at the helm, the Rebels have yet to sign a player ranked in the ESPN Top 300. Since 2015, there have been 12 players from Las Vegas in the rankings, including 10 of whom who played at Bishop Gorman under Sanchez and Gorman’s current head coach, Tony’s brother Kenny Sanchez.
The 2018 class was actually the first to have not played under Tony Sanchez at Gorman. Had UNLV been able to steal away either of the quarterbacks who joined the NCAA ranks in that time — Tate Martell and Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who went to Ohio State and UCLA, respectively — the team would have a top-flight talent that could be used to recruit other top-ranked players.
Though he did fail to secure any highly ranked commits, the Rebels signed four Gael alumni between the 2016 and 2017 seasons. The 2016 recruiting class was the highest ranked, according to 24/7 Sports, when UNLV had the 81st best recruiting class in the nation. Unsurprisingly, the lack of top-tier recruits had led to an overlooking of the team in the eyes of the NFL.
No players have been drafted with Sanchez in charge, but three have made their ways into the NFL. Even though the success hasn’t been prevalent on the field, Sanchez has been a boon for the university considering his relatively low salary ($600,000 per year) and cozy relationship with boosters going back to his high school coaching days, especially the Fertitta family.
When compared to the average salaries in the major conferences like the SEC or the Pac-12, it’s a steal.
Sanchez has worked closely with Nike, Gatorade and the Fertittas for years, giving the football program deep pockets to work with. Only time will tell if the ‘Sanchez Experiment” pays off, but the clock is ticking. The 2018 season will be his most defining, however it turns out, and no booster can hide another losing record.
