Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

UNLV football:

Take 5: Rebels back on the road with key game at Colorado State

UNLV Defeats Hawaii in Homecoming Game

L.E. Baskow

UNLV’s Lexington Thomas is hoisted up in celebration after a touchdown run against Hawaii at Sam Boyd Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2015.

The Rebels’ only shot at a bowl game is to win out, and the next step on that possible path will take them back on the road Saturday for a trip to Colorado State.

UNLV (3-6, 2-3) and Colorado State (4-5, 2-3) will kick off at 4 p.m. and the game will air on Root Sports. The Rebels are plus-7.5 on most betting boards as of Wednesday evening.

Coach Tony Sanchez has already eclipsed UNLV’s preseason win total of 2.5 and while it’s an uphill fight on the road the Rebels haven’t played that much worse than the Rams this season. They’ll have a chance down the stretch if they take care of a few of these things:

1. You Play To Get The Ball

It’s unclear exactly when this became the case, but the majority of college and NFL coaches these days prefer to defer if they win the coin toss. Starting on defense and receiving the ball to begin the second half is considered “the right way” to do things.

Sanchez is fine with that because it means the majority of the time he’s going to get what he wants, and what he wants is the ball.

“The whole point of football is what? To get the ball. If I have an opportunity to get the ball, I’m getting the ball and I don’t care when the hell it is,” said Sanchez, adding that only extreme weather conditions would compel him to defer.

Whether they won or lost the coin toss, the Rebels received the opening kickoff in their first eight games. If UNLV won the toss it took the ball and if the opponent won it happily kicked it away, seemingly a win-win for both coaches.

That streak of receiving the opening kickoff ended last weekend when UNLV’s first-year coach met Hawaii’s first-game coach. Interim coach Chris Naeole was probably eager to make the same kind of statement Sanchez is looking for each game with a strong opening drive.

It didn’t work for the Rainbow Warriors, who went three and out and punted to UNLV. The Rebels took the ball and scored a touchdown on their first drive of the game for the sixth time this season, though for the first time all year they had to wait their turn.

2. Veterans Day

Sanchez has involved and invoked the military throughout his first season at UNLV. On the day UNLV reported for camp, Sanchez brought in Col. Kenny Smith from Nellis Air Force Base to speak to the team and two weeks later they traveled to Nellis for an intrasquad scrimmage.

And throughout the year, Sanchez said, he’s coached ideals like leadership, discipline and sacrifice with military examples. When asked Tuesday to comment on Veterans Day, this is what Sanchez said:

“Our men and women who have served and continue to serve, they’re my heroes. I think they’re the most important people that walk the earth. We live in one of the greatest nations in the history of the world, one of the only nations that have ever fought one another for equality. We’re not perfect, but darn it, we fight to be every single day, and we have that right and we have those opportunities because of the men and women who put on those uniforms and defend us in foreign lands. I mean, you think about it, there are kids younger than these guys right now in fox holes somewhere a long ways away from their homes defending us every single day, so God bless them.”

3. The Margin That Matters

Any underdog hoping to pull off an upset would do well to do win the turnover battle, so the respective teams’ performance in that area has to make the Rebels at least a little confident heading into Fort Collins, Colo.

UNLV is among the league’s best while Colorado State is one of the worst in terms of turnover margin. For the season the Rebels are plus-6 while the Rams are minus-11, although UNLV’s margin is mostly even in league play while the Rams are minus-5.

4. Decker Moving Up List

In less than two full seasons, senior quarterback Blake Decker has moved into the top 10 of UNLV’s all-time career passing leaders and he could overtake Caleb Herring for eighth place on Saturday. Decker has 4,153 yards, Herring had 4,388 and at the very top Randall Cunningham’s 8,020 career passing yards feels like one of the most untouchable records on campus.

Decker is averaging 181 passing yards per game in seven starts this season, but that’s misleading because he only played all four quarters in four of those games. In four full games he’s averaging 257.5 yards per game, and even that is dragged down by ugly production (8-of-16, 96 yards, two interceptions, one touchdown) against a Michigan defense that has proven to be one of the toughest in the country.

While it’s a nice factoid to look back on for Decker as he wraps up a career in which he never had the same head coach for consecutive seasons, the achievement probably says more about UNLV’s history (or lack thereof) and the relative meaning of passing yards considering three of the top nine career passing leaders have played since 2007 (Decker, Herring and Omar Clayton), a stretch during which UNLV has gone 30-79.

5. Ram It In

First-year Colorado State coach Mike Bobo has run into many of the same issues as Sanchez, namely not being able to execute the kind of gameplan he wants.

Bobo would prefer to pass more on offense but that’s had occasionally disastrous results, like first-year starter Nick Stevens’ three interceptions in a 41-17 loss to San Diego State on Halloween. Colorado State responded with a season-high 55 rushing attempts in last week’s victory against Wyoming.

“I feel like we have not been as successful as I’d like throwing the ball, and I truly felt the game turned the week before when I tried to force some things; they’ve got to happen within our offense,” Bobo said according to the Fort Collins Coloradoan. “… We’ve got to do what we can do to be effective and win the game.”

Sanchez said he expects Colorado State to stick with a run-heavy offense on Saturday.

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

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