John Robinson
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 8-1
USC’76W’77W’78W’79W’81L’93W’94W’95WUNLV’00W
Show all 9 games
1976Rose BowlW 14-6TA&M1977Astro-Bluebonnet BowlW 47-281978Rose BowlW 17-10
1979Rose BowlW 17-16PSU1981Fiesta BowlL 10-26
1993Freedom BowlW 28-21
1994Cotton Bowl ClassicW 55-14
1995Rose BowlW 41-32
UNLV
2000Las Vegas BowlW 31-14
Stats
Big games
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
11-3 against his rivals at USC. Nobody he faced three or more times there has a winning record against him.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
2-7 against his rivals at USC. Winless in 3 tries against Joe Paterno.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
7-1 against his rivals at UNLV. Winless in 4 tries against Ron McBride.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
20-11 against his rivals. Winless in 4 tries against Joe Paterno.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Called about what the situation called for.
150 run and pass snaps at UNLV, 2004–2004, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points. Play-by-play starts in 2004, so his earlier seasons there aren’t in it.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Building the roster
Three numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2004 roster arrived on his watch — 24 of 24 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (1999-2004) predates 2021, when transfer-portal tracking begins in this database. Portal usage cannot be measured for this tenure at all -- this is not the same as '0% portal'.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 51 of 67 signees (76%) across his 2002–2004 classes on record (his tenure ran 1999–2004), drawn from 9 states in all. Next: NV (6).
91% of his signees come from CA and its 3 border states (NV 6, AZ 4).
Off this map: 4 signees to the east (AL, AR, others) and 1 to the north (WA).
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. None can be traced to who brought them in — there’s no roster record for these players here.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | R5.13 | Adam Seward | Linebacker |  Carolina Panthers | Estimated |
| 2005 | R5.34 | Ryan Claridge | Linebacker |  New England Patriots | Estimated |
| 2004 | R7.42 | Dominic Furio | Center |  Philadelphia Eagles | Estimated |
| 2002 | R2.28 | Anton Palepoi | Defensive End |  Seattle Seahawks | Estimated |
| 2002 | R4.33 | Sam Brandon | Defensive Back |  Denver Broncos | Estimated |
| 2002 | R6.04 | Kevin Thomas | Defensive Back |  Buffalo Bills | Estimated |
| 2002 | R7.50 | Ahmad Miller | Defensive Tackle |  Houston Texans | Estimated |
| 2000 | R5.26 | Quincy Sanders | Defensive Back |  Washington Redskins | Estimated |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Sustainer inherited a power and held it for five-plus elite seasons · Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
6th-best UNLV tenure of 12 by the numbers.
Followed Jeff Horton (1994–1998) · succeeded by Mike Sanford Sr. (2005–2009).
| Season | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||
| Record | 3-8 | 8-5 | 4-7 | 5-7 | 6-6 | 2-9 | |
| Postseason | — | W bowl | — | — | — | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | 50 | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | 55 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | 38.8 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | 50.0 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
3rd-best USC tenure of 17 by the numbers.
Followed John McKay (1960–1975) · succeeded by Ted Tollner (1983–1986) · returned in 1993, succeeding Larry Smith (1987–1992) · succeeded by Paul Hackett (1998–2000).
| Season | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||||||
| Record | 11-1 | 8-4 | 12-1 | 11-0-1 | 8-2-1 | 9-3 | 8-3 | 8-5 | 8-3-1 | 9-2-1 | 6-6 | 6-5 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | — | L bowl | — | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | — | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
64 NFL Draft picks: Ricky Bell (1977), Marvin Powell (1977), Gary Jeter (1977), Dave Lewis (1977), Shelton Diggs (1977), Donnie Hickman (1977), Vince Evans (1977), Mike Burns (1977) + 56 more
Selector agreement
The AP and Coaches’ polls split on the national champion in 1 season of this coach’s career — shown as each selector’s own pick, not a single consensus title.
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
2nd all-time at UNLV
Was he good?
Only one of the usual three angles is measurable for this era — raised the program.
+8.7 pts at UNLV · #249 of 1290 · top quarter