Sanchez comfortable with quarterback Oblad in the clutch

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Friday, Nov. 1, 2019 | 2 a.m.

Through sheer circumstance, UNLV football surprisingly did not play a close game in the first half of the 2019 season. The margin of victory/defeat through the first seven games was 27 points, with the closest contest being a 16-point loss at Northwestern on Sept. 14, so until last week there was really no way to tell how the team might respond in a clutch situation.

We found out on Saturday, when the Rebels went down to the wire with San Diego State, and for coach Tony Sanchez, the results were mostly comforting—especially at the quarterback position.

UNLV trailed 17-0 toward the end of the first half before staging a strong comeback effort. With four minutes to play, the Rebels had the ball, down 17-14, and freshman quarterback Kenyon Oblad had the game in his hands.

Oblad did a lot of good things on the final drive, and though it ended with a missed field goal and a crippling loss, Sanchez said it was encouraging to see his young QB come through under pressure.

“He did some really good things against a high-stress defense,“ Sanchez said. “He’s a young quarterback. He’s progressing every week. I think there’s things you see each week that you’ve got to do a better job coaching up; you also see some things that show exponential growth.”

Oblad’s best play was a fourth-and-24 completion to Randal Grimes to kick-start the last drive. A high shotgun snap had gone over Oblad’s head and put the offense into an almost impossible situation deep in its own territory, but the Liberty product stood in the pocket on fourth down and threw a perfect over-the-shoulder pass to Grimes down the left sideline for 42 yards.

Without that pass, UNLV’s comeback hopes would have been dead in the water.

“The thing I like the most about him,” Sanchez said, “is when the game was on the line, there was that snap … for him to be able to settle down, complete that ball to Grimes, on that fourth-and-long, to make some of those other plays, I thought it was good.”

The performance was enough to convince Sanchez, and on Monday he named Oblad the starting quarterback for this week’s game at Colorado State, even with junior Armani Rogers now 100 percent healthy and cleared to play.

Oblad has shown promise as a passer this season, completing 51.9 percent for 1,251 yards with 10 touchdowns and six interceptions. Against San Diego State, he threw for 255 yards, with two TDs and no interceptions.

Sanchez also spoke highly of Oblad’s game management in the final minutes. With timeouts at a premium, it would have been understandable for a redshirt freshman to buckle under the pressure. But Oblad got the Rebels in and out of the huddle, avoided negative plays (aside from the high snap) and generally executed the offense when the stakes were at their highest.

“I thought he did a really good job with that,” Sanchez said. “That part was done really well. We had the one timeout in our back pocket, and to not have to use it early on was a really good thing. He did a good job.”

Colorado State’s porous run defense may lead to the Rebels’ embracing a ground-heavy game plan this week, but if the team finds itself in a close contest down the stretch, Sanchez at least knows he can lean on his quarterback to make a play when it’s most needed.

Medical redshirt an unlikely option for Rogers

With Oblad assuming the starting quarterback role, it’s fair to wonder what the future now holds for Armani Rogers.

Once considered the face of the UNLV program, Rogers has struggled as a passer during his three seasons as a Rebel, and though he’s an elite runner at the quarterback position, his hard-charging style has led to significant injury every season.

There was some speculation that because Rogers has only played in four games this season, he might be able to sit out the rest of the schedule and apply for a medical redshirt. That would leave him with two seasons of eligibility remaining, and combined with his redshirt freshman year in 2016, it would make him an attractive grad-transfer candidate in the offseason (assuming his course load has him on-schedule for a spring 2019 graduation). But Sanchez threw some cold water on the idea of a medical waiver this week when he announced that Rogers is healthy and cleared to play.

When asked specifically if a medical redshirt could be in play for Rogers, the coach said it was unlikely.

“I don’t believe so,” Sanchez said. “He’s clear and he has already redshirted.”

Rogers could still choose leave UNLV as a grad transfer after the season, but with only one year of eligibility remaining.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.