Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

UNLV Football:

Hot off the Presser: Sanchez prepares for first game vs. ‘University of Reno’

UNLV Loses to UNR in Season Finale at Sam Boyd Stadium

L.E. Baskow

UNLV fans let their opinion of UNR be known Friday, Nov. 29, 2014, at Sam Boyd Stadium.

The Rebel Room

A Rivalry to Remember?

Betting boards are giving UNLV a much better chance this week at UNR after the Rebels' 80-8 victory against Idaho State, and Sun sports editor Ray Brewer tells reporters Case Keefer and Taylor Bern that UNLV coach Tony Sanchez will be riding the Fremont Cannon back to Vegas.

This week is so important to the Rebels that two of them sat in Sunday’s team meeting shirtless. Wait, let’s go back for a second.

It’s rivalry week at UNLV as the team readies for the Battle for the Fremont Cannon in Reno on Saturday, and one of many things coach Tony Sanchez told his team was that they weren’t to wear anything blue this week. That’s easy enough to follow from the end of the meeting through the weekend, but junior center Will Kreitler and special teams coordinator Andy LaRussa were already wearing a shade of blue. So they simply removed the offending colors and sat through the rest of the meeting shirtless.

Problem solved.

Saturday’s game, which kicks off at 4:05 p.m., won’t be on TV so locals who aren’t traveling up to the nearly sold-out Mackay Stadium must watch the stream on Mountain West Network and Campus Insiders.

The trash talk between fan bases online has been going on for a few days, and on Tuesday Sanchez got in his first shot when asked what he would call the Rebels’ rival …

• “We refer to them as Reno, Nevada. The University of Reno, Nevada.”

This wasn’t a slip. Sanchez knows it irks many UNR people that UNLV won’t refer to their teams or university as Nevada, so it only made sense to get in a dig that endears him even more to Rebel fans.

After all, he’s been hearing about this week since taking the job in December …

• “The first thing everybody told me was, ‘Get the Cannon back, Coach.’ That was something that was said over and over.”

In the last decade, the heaviest and most expensive trophy in college football has spent only 13 months in Las Vegas. The rest of the time it’s been mostly parked in Reno, on display and getting only a touch-up paint job for the team that holds a 24-16 lead in the series.

UNLV’s season could still go a lot of different ways, but a victory Saturday would make the year a success no matter what comes after in a lot of people's eyes. That includes many students, who have made sure to tell players like junior linebacker Ryan McAleenan that they want a cannon parade on Monday …

• “We definitely hear it on campus. This is a big game for this whole school.”

Click to enlarge photo

Collyn Williams, and Darlene Norman pose with handmade T-shirts during a cannon painting ceremony on UNLV campus Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. The UNLV football team beat Reno Saturday 27-22 to break an eight-year losing streak in the rivalry game and gain possession of the Fremont cannon.

Two years ago the Rebels marched the Fremont Cannon through campus to the student union, where they handed out paintbrushes for a celebratory coat before it went down the road to the university’s paint center for its official colors. There was a decent-size crowd of students there, one of the few times in recent years they’ve been able to celebrate the fledgling football program.

Sanchez said having another event like that on Monday could come down to UNLV forcing UNR into mistakes that it has made only twice this season …

• “They’re the team in this conference that’s turned it over the least and we’re the team in the conference that’s created the most turnovers.”

Wolf Pack quarterback Tyler Stewart has thrown two interceptions and the team hasn’t lost a fumble. The Rebels’ defense has two fumble recoveries and eight interceptions, which are the second most picks in the country and one more than UNLV had all of last season.

The Rebels lead the Mountain West in turnover margin and Sanchez sees that as a path to getting out of Reno with a win. He’d also like to get out unscathed.

As Sanchez prepares for his first on-field taste of this in-state rivalry he’s been going through some history and getting pumped up over past games and even some of the extracurricular activities. Like the Wolf Pack fan who served five days in jail in 2003 for hitting UNLV coach John Robinson with a plastic bottle …

• “Hey, that’s exciting. I mean, I hope I don’t get hit with a bottle.”

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

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