Mondays with Mike: Can cooler heads prevail again?

By Ryan Greene

Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008 | 2:30 a.m.

Each Monday, UNLV football coach Mike Sanford meets with the media to discuss last weekend's action and next weekend's matchup. That said, each Monday the Sun will bring you notes and quotes discussing both.

Maybe Casey Flair is no longer cut out for the octagon.

The senior receiver - who in his earlier years as a Rebel had a penchant for picking up personal fouls - showed Saturday just how far he's come in terms of having the cooler head.

Leonard Johnson - the Iowa State freshman defensive back who was ejected after jacking up Omar Clayton well after he got into the end zone in the first quarter - apparently wanted to get under UNLV's collective skin right from go. Five plays before the snap which led to his heave-ho, he earned another personal foul flag. And in between the two, UNLV coach Mike Sanford witnessed an act which could have earned him yet another.

"He had one where he flat-out hauled off and punched Casey Flair," Sanford recalled. "And I watched the whole thing, and Casey just went back to the huddle. The old Casey Flair, it would have been a flurry of punches. It would have been like mixed martial arts. Would have been some kicks, too.

"The one thing I will say is for the most part, I was proud of how our guys handled themselves."

Sanford said after the game that Iowa State's players on certain occasions in the first half of Saturday's 34-31 UNLV overtime win were trying to draw the Rebels into their little game within the game. The fact that they could resist is a positive, given that this weekend brings Nevada-Reno to town. It surely will be the most emotional game the Rebels have this season. Monday, Sanford said its without question his team's most important contest.

Injury updates

An ankle here, an ankle there. And another ankle over there.

That's the theme right now for the Rebels on the injury front, who had three players regulated to the bench Saturday with ankle sprains.

The most notable was right guard Evan Marchal, but he is expected back this week, Sanford said. The same goes for running backs Channing Trotter and Imari Thompson.

In other running back news, Sanford updated the status of David Peeple, who is still recovering from a nagging foot injury which kept him out for much of fall camp. He said the senior is at about '65-to-70 percent' right now, and he'll be back in the fold once he can go at full speed on a regular basis at practice.

Even more on the running backs

One of those ball carriers fortunate enough to not have an ankle woe right now is freshman C.J. Cox, who has assumed the No. 2 spot on the depth chart the past two weeks with Trotter out.

He has the speedy potential to be the perfect change-of-pace option to Frank Summers, and against Iowa State finally found some daylight to show a flash of that. He finished with two carries for 15 yards.

"In both (of the last two) games, it was like he didn't get a chance to do anything, because we either threw the ball to him and somebody hit him right away, or he ran the ball and we didn't block very well and he got hit right away," Sanford said. "This was the first game where he got a chance to show what he could do, and I thought he played really well."

As for Summers, he's taken some bumps and bruises the past two weeks typical of a back who runs as hard and as often as he does. But Cox's emergence won't take away from the workload for Summers, who enters this weekend having produced 100-plus yards on the ground in two straight games.

"I would say that that's a difficult thing to determine because I don't want to not use Frank Summers," Sanford said of Cox's role. "I think we're stupid coaches if we don't run Frank Summers. At the same time, I think we've got to be really smart."

Final run game note ... swear

The Rebels found plenty of success Saturday with 'Speed Sweep' plays, where Clayton gave handoffs to receivers Ryan Wolfe and Michael Johnson out of the shotgun. The duo combined for 61 yards on six carries.

"I think we've got a good problem in that we've got guys that are weapons in this offense, and we've got to find ways to get them the ball," Sanford explained. "What we felt going into the game after watching Mike Johnson after one time on one of those speed-sweep-type things (at Utah) was we saw his quickness, and he made people miss. That's a real evaluator of players - If a guy can make people miss, you've got to find ways to get them the ball."

Lone turnover no cause for concern

Last week, Sanford told the story of fumbles at practice resembling the sky falling out at Rebel Park. Of course, part of the dramatics were due to the fact that UNLV went three games without giving away possession.

A Ryan Wolfe third quarter fumble Saturday ended that stretch.

The sky is still where it was yesterday, believe it or not.

"I think in practice you can treat it like that," Sanford said. "In a game you've got to be able to move on and bounce back from it. Ryan Wolfe is a very trustworthy guy. It's not like he's had a parttern of that. All I did was talk to him about how he needs to make a play to make up for this."

Looking ahead to Nevada-Reno

Some bits and pieces ...

-Sanford believes that even though his team is 3-1, welcoming in a 1-2 rival and is the favorite around town by 3.5 points, the fact that he's lost his previous three meetings with the Wolf Pack tilts the scales. He said that he considers UNLV to be the underdog this week.

-After Saturday's game, Sanford joked lightly about adjustments the defense needs to be made against dual-threat quarterbacks. Iowa State's Austen Arnaud led the Cyclones in rushing, making him the third opposing quarterback in four games this season to do so for his squad. UN-R's Colin Kaepernick - as solid a sophomore quarterback as you'll find in the country - leads the Wolf Pack in rushing with 214 yards and four scores in three games.

-Sanford was sent down memory lane in terms of other great rivalries he's been a part of in his coaching career - spanning from Indiana-Purdue to USC-Notre Dame to Cal-Stanford to, get this, VMI-The Citadel. But he said definitively that this one ranks at the top.

Pressed to recall the greatest single rivalry game he's been a part of? An early 1990s meeting between Southern Cal and UCLA in which Todd Marinovich hit Johnnie Morton in the corner of the end zone for the game-winner to conclude a wild shootout.

Be sure to stay tuned to www.lasvegassun.com the rest of this week (and the season, for that matter) for all of your UNLV football coverage, including stories, blogs, photos, videos and live in-game coverage.