Shocked in San Diego: UNLV season ends with 42-21 loss

By Ryan Greene

Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008 | 2:10 a.m.

SAN DIEGO -- What's on paper can't win ball games on its own.

San Diego State found 42 ways to prove that Saturday night at Qualcomm Stadium. The Aztecs looked nothing like the team that had stumbled to a 1-10 record going into the season's final weekend, one that dragged a porous defense with it like a ball and chain.

The Rebels, though, hardly resembled the team that had resuscitated a quickly fading season beginning two weeks ago, and suffered a loss that may be harder for the players and coaches to comprehend than any of the other six setbacks they'd accrued so far.

The 42-21 defeat on a cool, misty night in San Diego dropped UNLV to a 5-7 finishing mark for the 2008 season, one win shy of the bowl eligible status that seemed to be such a slam dunk way back when Mike Sanford's bunch opened the season 3-1.

Now, all of the scoreboard watching and 'who's bowl eligible, who's not' chatter that would have kept the Rebels busy for the next couple of weeks are nothing more than moot points.

"I don't think it was so much what we did, but what they did," said junior linebacker Jason Beauchamp, one of several Rebels who both entered and exited the locker room with stunned expressions and remains of tears on their faces. "They wanted to win this game more than we wanted to go to a bowl game."

What both teams did, in fact, was pretty uncharacteristic.

UNLV turned the ball over three times after having not done so since early in a victory over New Mexico two weeks ago. The Rebels had only given possession away 10 times all year coming into Saturday.

On the flip side, San Diego went the entire night without a turnover. That was something the Aztecs had not done all season.

With senior tailback Frank Summers leaving the game after the first series with a right knee injury, the Rebels finished the game with 33 yards on 20 carries against a run defense that ranked dead last in the nation coming in against the ground game, surrendering 267 yards on average. In fact, the fewest rushing yards the Aztecs had allowed this season before coming in were the 105 that Notre Dame piled up on Sept. 6.

Establishing the run game might have gone on the backburner in the second quarter, at which point UNLV began playing from behind. It would be that way the rest of the night.

The turning point of the night came late in the third quarter with San Diego State still clinging to a 14-7 lead it had taken into the halftime locker room. The Rebels faced a second-and-one from their own 41-yard line, and freshman quarterback Mike Clausen rolled out to the left. He lofted a pass deep toward the right sideline for frosh speedster Michael Johnson, who had a lead on an Aztec defender. The ball fell to the ground out of Johnson's hands. He may have scored on the play, and at the very least would have set the Rebels up in the SDSU red zone with a reception and a golden opportunity to knot up the score.

A play later, C.J. Cox fumbled the ball away -- UNLV's first turnover of the night -- and not too long after that, Darren Mougey's 3-yard run put the Rebels in a two-touchdown hole out of which they could not climb.

"You've got seven points right there or you're in the red zone, either or," Clausen said. "So you want to make that catch, but we had other opportunities, also. We didn't step up and make the plays we had to tonight, so that's how it went down."

The final nail came with UNLV still trailing by two touchdowns -- this time at 35-21 -- late in the fourth quarter. A Clausen pass over the middle sailed a bit and was picked by Corey Boudreaux. He shot through a sea of bodies into the clear, and 82 yards later, sealed the Rebels' 5-7 fate.

"There was a point there where I really believed -- until the interception for a touchdown -- we were gonna come back and win the game," Sanford said.

Instead, San Diego State quarterback Ryan Lindley ended the game in a fashion he was far from used to: He took a knee to drain out the clock in front of a handful of Aztec fans who had not yet given up on the team. The freshman gunslinger obliterated the UNLV secondary to the tune of 387 yards on 35-of-50 passing.

Now, the Rebels, who bid farewell for good to their seniors, are left to spend the offseason with mixed emotions. While there's plenty of optimism for next season, given the amount of playmakers who will be back for the Rebels off a team that more than doubled its win total from each of the previous four seasons, there are also lots of questions.

What will Mike Sanford's long-term future be beyond 2009? Can the influx of junior college defensive backs shore things up in the secondary? How will the run game look and can Sanford and his staff replace the thunder to go alongside the lightning they have in C.J. Cox? Can Omar Clayton produce at the same clip and be as efficient as he was through nine-and-a-half games this season?

The departing seniors now know one thing they'd like to see rectified.

"I'll feel better next year if the Rebels don't let this happen again," said Summers, who only got to carry the ball two times for 6 yards in his final game at UNLV. "Hopefully they'll be bowl eligible before this game, and if so, then I'll be happy."