The University of Nevada-Las Vegas football team has changed its uniforms and its head coach since the last time the Rebels visited Aloha Stadium.

What has little changed entering Saturday’s game against Hawaii is the number of victories.

Each of the three previous times the Rebels, now 2-4, played in Halawa they also arrived toting a two-win record: 2-10 (2014), 2-10 (2012) and 2-10 (2010).

In fact, UNLV was 2-6 when it hooked up with UH last year in the desert and the Rebels have finished eight of the last 12 seasons with just two victories each.

Which brings up the question: With all that it would seem to have going for it, why hasn’t UNLV football fared better over the years?

Basketball has historically done well there but football has floundered with just two winning seasons in 21 years. UH, despite the recent drought and the barren Fred vonAppen period, has managed eight.

Eight times in its 17-year Mountain West Conference tenure UNLV has finished last or tied for the cellar.

This while the school has dared to dream big, even submitting a bid for Big 12 membership this summer. (It was put in the thanks, but no thanks pile).

UNLV has invested in five head coaches and as many approaches in the 21 years. It grabbed Jeff Horton, who won at archrival Nevada, and tried the venerable John Robinson, who won at USC and the Los Angeles Rams. It tapped Mike Sanford, a promising offensive coordinator from Utah, and proven Bobby Hauck, who took Montana to three FCS national championship games.

And, now, it has Tony Sanchez, a celebrated high school coach who was 85-5 with a national title at Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas.

Sanchez, with his Gorman connections, where the children of many of the Las Vegas elite attend, has gotten off to a promising start in recruiting and even helped to secure a $10 million donation from the former owners of UFC for a planned 73,000-square foot, $24 million Fertitta Football Complex.

Yet, until those efforts kick in, the more things change the more they have so far remained the same for the Rebels.

And there is some surprise to that given UNLV’s pluses. It is a growing university smack dab in a metropolitan area of more than two million residents. An area that, on average, can boast 294 sunny days a year.

In addition, Los Angeles, Orange County San Diego and Phoenix, four metro areas with a combined population of nearly 20 million, are all four and a half hours or less away by car.

Nor is it like Las Vegas is bereft of talent. A 247Sports Composite, which aggregates blue chip lists of recruiting agencies over a five-year period, ranked Nevada ahead of 26 other states in producing elite prospects.

The problem, as UH knows, is keeping them home. For example, the top player in the MWC, running back Donnel Pumphrey, played his high school football about 12 miles away from UNLV, but is breaking Marshall Faulk’s records at San Diego State.

Meanwhile, the record has little changed since UNLV’s last trip here and, for UH, that’s not all bad.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.