Rebels will open 2015 Mountain West slate with Battle for the Fremont Cannon

By Taylor Bern

Published Monday, March 2, 2015 | 12:32 p.m.

Updated Monday, March 2, 2015 | 2:03 p.m.

Tony Sanchez’s first Mountain West game as UNLV’s football coach will also be his first Battle for the Fremont Cannon.

The Rebels will open conference play at UNR on Oct. 3, the Mountain West announced today. The league released the schedules for all 12 teams this afternoon, and the timing of the Rebels’ rivalry game was one of the bigger surprises.

Last year, the game was played in the final week of the regular season for the first time since 1977. Former coach Bobby Hauck had been a proponent of finishing the schedule with the rivalry, and the game figured to either stay there or be moved back to Nevada Day on Oct. 31.

Instead, the Rebels will open league play against the Wolf Pack before starting the home conference slate on Oct. 10 against San Jose State. Mountain West Deputy Commissioner Bret Gilliland addressed the schedule in a statement.

“In accordance with the parameters established by the MW membership for the construction of the annual football schedule, there are no protections afforded for ‘rivalry’ games nor are institutions permitted to request placement of games in certain slots," he said. "Numerous computer models are run to generate the best possible competitive schedule for all 12 member institutions and those are evaluated in the context of a number of different variables. In 2013, the UNLV-Nevada matchup just happened to fall out of this process on Nevada Day. In 2014, the game just happened to fall out in the last week of the season. Obviously, in the 2015 schedule, neither of those occurred."

This is the first year of UNLV’s new two-year rotation with the other three teams in the Mountain Division. So instead of New Mexico, Air Force and Utah State, the Rebels will play Boise State, Wyoming and Colorado State for the next two seasons.

After the San Jose State game it’s at Fresno State, Boise State, Hawaii, at Colorado State, San Diego State and the regular season finale at Wyoming.

UNLV opens and closes the season on the road, but it won’t have back-to-back road games all year. Here’s a look at the Rebels’ full 2015 schedule:

9/5 — at Northern Illinois

9/12 — UCLA

9/19 — at Michigan

9/26 — Idaho State

10/3 — at UNR

10/10 — San Jose State

10/17 — at Fresno State

10/31 — Boise State

11/7 — Hawaii

11/14 — at Colorado State

11/21 — San Diego State

11/28 — at Wyoming

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