Bobby Hauck is unbeaten against Colorado State. From 1995-98, Hauck roamed Colorado’s sidelines in a variety of capacities, each time mauling the Rams in the instate rivalry.
After he hitched a ride with Rick Neuheisel to Washington, CSU started beating its Boulder neighbor. Although he still doesn’t look much older than he did in the mid-1990s, Hauck has moved all over the West to land his first Division I-A head-coaching job at UNLV.
CSU tries to break its 10-game losing streak in the MWC today against UNLV in a battle of 1-5 teams.
“We’ve been really lucky. We’ve been in good places. We loved Colorado, Boulder and the state of Colorado,” Hauck said. His resume includes Northern Arizona, UCLA and Washington besides CU. He was at his alma mater, Montana, for seven years, with an 80-17 record and annual visits to the playoffs.
Last winter, he talked himself into the UNLV job, where proven program rebuilder Dennis Franchione was the early favorite. UNLV hasn’t been without first-year struggles.
Today’s foes have played a combined seven top-25 programs with predictable results. UNLV has only defeated New Mexico, arguably the worst program in the country.
“We’ve had our hands full,” Hauck said of their schedule.
Unlike CSU, UNLV scheduled trips to perennial powers — in the Rebels’ case, Wisconsin and West Virginia — taking home $750,000 for the latter.
“We need to get to a bowl game at some point, that’s priority No. 1,” Hauck said. “Our schedule this year is somewhat prohibitive to that. We have nine bowl teams from last year. . . . You have to give yourself a chance to schedule. We’re researching that ourselves right now.”
Natalie Meisler: 303 954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com
