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March 28, 2024

Rebels’ rally falls short in ‘crushing’ loss to San Diego State

Rebels Fall Short, Lose to SDSU

Sam Morris/Las Vegas News Bureau

UNLV Rebels’ Hayes Hicken (19) and place kicker Daniel Gutierrez (32) react as Gutierrez’s game-tying field goal attempt bounces off the upright in the final seconds during their NCAA football game Saturday, October 26, 2019, at Sam Boyd Stadium.

Rebels Fall Short, Lose to Aztecs

UNLV Rebels place kicker Hayes Hicken (19) and UNLV Rebels place kicker Daniel Gutierrez (32) react after Gutierrez's game-tying field goal attempt bounced off the upright in the final seconds of their NCAA football game against the San Diego State Aztecs Saturday, October 26, 2019, at Sam Boyd Stadium. Launch slideshow »

UNLV was inches from a miraculous, potentially season-saving win as Daniel Gutierrez’s 42-yard field goal attempt hurtled through the air. Instead, after a gut-wrenching, 20-17 loss to San Diego State on Saturday, the Rebels are inches from oblivion.

Freshman quarterback Kenyon Oblad rallied the Rebels from a big early deficit, but Gutierrez’s kick banged off the right upright with less than a minute to play to drop the guillotine on UNLV’s comeback. The loss leaves the Rebels at 2-6 on the season; one more defeat will eliminate the team from bowl contention and likely seal Tony Sanchez’s fate as head coach.

That the Rebels were in position to send the game to overtime at all was astounding. Toward the end of a sloppy first half filled with dropped passes, missed tackles and a punt that was blocked by SDSU and recovered for a touchdown, UNLV trailed, 17-0. Oblad heated up late, however, and his 58-yard TD pass to Randal Grimes made it a 17-7 game heading into the break.

Oblad drove the Rebels for a field goal to open the second half, and San Diego State eventually answered with a field goal of its own to end the third quarter with a 20-10 lead.

Oblad’s 2-yard touchdown pass to Giovanni Fauolo made it 20-17 with 5:57 to play, and after the UNLV defense forced a punt, the game was in Oblad’s hands. Starting from the UNLV 23, things took a disastrous turn when the second-down shotgun snap sailed over Oblad’s head; he was able to recover the loose ball, but the miscue backed the Rebels into a fourth-and-24 corner with 1:40 on the clock.

With only one timeout remaining, UNLV kept the offense on the field and ran four vertical routes. Oblad fired a spiral to Grimes down the left sideline, and the sophomore receiver hauled in the perfectly-placed pass for a 42-yard gain. Six plays later, the Rebels had moved the ball to the 25-yard line to set up Gutierrez’s game-tying attempt.

Sanchez felt the Rebels got close enough for Gutierrez, who had made his previous six kicks.

“You saw the distance he had,” Sanchez said. ”He probably could have made it from another seven, eight yards back. It just hit the upright. He’s in [the locker room], he’s got tears in his eyes, but we wouldn’t have even had a chance to make that field goal had he not made the one earlier. He’s a great kid and he works hard for us. It’s disappointing. Nobody’s hurting more than him.”

The Rebels knew they let an important one slip away.

“It’s crushing,” Oblad said. “That’s all you can really say. It just feels down right now. We wanted that win really badly.”

For the game, Oblad completed 21-of-39 passes for 255 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions. With junior quarterback Armani Rogers still out with an ankle injury, it looks like the Rebels will be Oblad’s team indefinitely, and maybe even for the rest of the season.

Sanchez seemed to indicate he is sold on Oblad going forward.

“At the end of the game he showed a lot of savvy,” Sanchez said. “When that snap went over his head, and for us to be backed up on a fourth-down situation, for him to put that ball on the money and then run back up there and make another play, I think he’s got a lot of courage and toughness. He’s growing up in front of everybody’s eyes right now.”

San Diego State helped UNLV hang around by playing conservatively on offense. The Aztecs ran the ball 37 times for 150 yards (4.1 yards per carry) and went 4-of-13 on third-down conversions.

And when the Aztecs should have been conservative—on third-and-short in field goal range with a 20-10 lead in the fourth quarter—they got aggressive, and quarterback Ryan Agnew was intercepted by Jericho Flowers, setting up UNLV’s fourth-quarter touchdown drive to make it 20-17.

UNLV will next play on Saturday at Colorado State. After that is a bye, then home games against Hawaii (Nov. 16) and San Jose State (Nov. 23) leading to the season finale at UNR (Nov. 30).

The Rebels now have to win all of them if they want to qualify for a postseason berth.

Even after coming up short in such painful fashion against San Diego State, Oblad thinks his team can do it.

“This team, we’re really good,” Oblad said. “Sometimes we let games slip away, we don’t play as good as we [could], but we all have confidence in ourselves that we can win every game. So these last four games, we have the same mentality as we did before. We’re still going to win all the games.”

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

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