December 3, 1998

LAS VEGAS (AP) - John Robinson is returning to college football as coach of downtrodden UNLV.

Robinson was to be officially announced as UNLV's coach today, after agreeing to a three-year deal at a reported $375,000 a year.

The former Southern California coach flew to Las Vegas Wednesday to talk with UNLV officials and finalize the deal for the vacant job.

Robinson, 63, declined to discuss the job after emerging from his meeting, but earlier said he was looking forward to building a program at Las Vegas.

Earlier, though, he compared the rebuilding of UNLV's program to Kansas State, which is undefeated this year.

"I think they're going to make a real effort to upgrade the program," Robinson said. "That has nothing to do with me; I think that's just a fact. And I think it's one of those places where one would evaluate and say, Boy, could they do what Kansas State did?' And Las Vegas would be one of those areas (that could)."

The UNLV job became open after the firing of Jeff Horton, whose team won only four games in the past three seasons and has lost 16 straight.

Robinson, with two tenures as Southern Cal's coach and one with the Los Angeles Rams, would bring instant credibility to the UNLV program, which will open play next year in the new Mountain West Conference.

Robinson was fired by Southern Cal following the 1997 season, after going 12-11 over the previous two years. Overall, in 12 years at Southern Cal, he was 104-35-4.

In between his two stints, Robinson coached the Rams for nine years, going 79-74 and reaching the NFC championship game twice.

Robinson is known as a strong recruiter and his strong ties to the Southern California area would be a natural fit in trying to recruit players to UNLV. Many current UNLV players are from the Los Angeles area.