Las Vegas featured prominently in UNLV’s new football uniforms

By Taylor Bern

Wednesday, April 29, 2015 | 5:46 p.m.

From the moment he left Bishop Gorman High to take over at UNLV, Tony Sanchez has been set on rebranding the Rebels. That includes more openly embracing and selling Las Vegas to recruits, right down to the uniforms.

Sanchez’s teams at Gorman had several different uniform combinations and that’s a theme he’s bringing to the Rebels, who today unveiled their new Nike uniforms featuring several Vegas references.

“Las Vegas is so important to our university and our football program wants to be a big part of the Las Vegas community,” Sanchez said in a statement. “We are fortunate to live in one of the world’s great destinations and these uniform designs are one of the ways we will proudly represent our city.”

For the first time in program history the Rebels will have multiple helmet colors with red and silver, and on the back both feature a three-inch sticker of the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign.

There are three sets of jerseys and pants in red, white and black, and each one features a local touch. The white pants have block letters spelling out LAS VEGAS on each side while the red and black pants have a diamond design from the Stardust sign that can still be seen at the Neon Museum.

UNLV had red helmets from 1973-81, and silver from 1968-72 and 1982-14. The teams’ cleats will be black shoes with white logos and white shoes with red logos.

New uniforms probably won’t win any games for the Rebels, but they’re part of Sanchez’s efforts to tie the team more closely the city and sell both to a higher caliber of player. Whether or not that ends up working, the Rebels are going to have several more options hanging in the closet this season.

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.