‘Everybody needed this’: UNLV holds on for OT victory against Fresno State

By Taylor Bern

Saturday, Oct. 11, 2014 | 1:35 a.m.

A lot of moments get lost in a game that’s ultimately decided by not one but three kickers. For a UNLV team looking for something, anything positive to build on heading into a welcome bye week, those smaller moments were more important than Nicolai Bornand’s game-winning 33-yard field goal in a 30-27 overtime victory against Fresno State on a beautiful Saturday night at Sam Boyd Stadium.

Here’s one: After dominating the first half, UNLV’s lead is down to 17-7 with the ball on their own 12 facing third-and-8. Quarterback Blake Decker, solid the entire game minus one awful first-half interception, throws a strike to his left into traffic.

The pass looked like it might have been picked off, and if it had been there was nothing but air between the Bulldogs and a touchdown. Instead, freshman receiver Devonte Boyd beat the defenders around him, went up and grabbed the ball and then turned it up field for a first down.

It wasn’t a scoring play. In fact, it wasn’t even a scoring drive as UNLV punted four plays later. But for the first time in 2014 those individual performances added up for the Rebels (2-5, 1-2), who then closed the game with the confidence of last year’s group.

“That was the difference in a couple of earlier games this season. We didn’t make those plays,” said coach Bobby Hauck. “… It’s probably as simple as that. Make the play or don’t, and when you make the play you win.”

Simple or not, there’s no denying this was an exciting game. For the winning side it was downright fun, at least by the end it was because there were plenty of hair-pulling moments along the way.

UNLV could have won the game in regulation with a 26-yard field goal. Patrick Leiva, the Rebels’ extra-point and close-range kicker, lined up with 5 seconds left, and after Bulldogs coach Tim DeRuyter called a timeout Leiva took a practice rep that went straight through the posts from the left hash mark. Hauck said later that he kept the ball on that side because that’s where the Rebels practiced it from on Wednesday and Leiva was generally better from that side.

The real attempt went wide right.

“That would deflate a lot of teams,” Hauck said. “Couple that with the fact that we’re 1-5, that we’d lost four in a row and then that we had that happen to us, it just shows the type of character we have in our locker room.”

UNLV got into that position with a 12-play, 63-yard drive that featured two third-down conversions. In crunch time the Rebels leaned on running back Keith Whitely, who finished with 87 yards on 18 carries, and Decker made a few key passes, including a 19-yard pass to Anthony Williams that took UNLV down to the 10.

“We fought our butts off for our defense,” Whitely said.

It was the kind of drive that, coming into this game, UNLV might not have been capable. No one had seen it this year, yet the Rebels put together two of those gut-check drives. The other one was just a few minutes earlier when, after falling behind for the first time all game, the Rebels spent nearly four minutes controlling the ball and getting into range for Bornand’s game-tying 46-yarder.

That kick was only possible because of Fresno State’s major kicking issues. The Bulldogs (3-4, 2-1) were so worried about their kicker that they went for it on fourth-and-inches at the 13-yard line, then looked like geniuses when Marteze Waller bowled into the end zone.

Then Kody Kroening missed the extra point, leaving the door open for Bornand’s tie and eventual game-winner.

“I never thought I’d get the chance,” Bornand said of his final kick. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

While the first half was all Rebels, by the end of the game it felt as even as the scoreboard suggested. The biggest difference was that almost every time a play happened that felt like the same old UNLV, it was coming from the other sideline.

Fresno State sent two kickoffs out of bounds and both led to UNLV points. The Bulldogs dropped or missed some possible interceptions, helping the Rebels win the turnover battle for the first time all season.

It wasn't a perfect performance by any stretch, but it was so clearly the best complete game UNLV has played this season and it came just in time. The Rebels, still mathematically alive for a bowl game, head into a bye week that Hauck termed “absolutely critical” for his banged up team.

If the Rebels had limped into that break with another blowout loss, there’s no telling how bad things could have gotten. This doesn’t guarantee a season turnaround, but it’s a building block. It’s one victory made up of a collection of moments big and small that featured the Rebels going up and taking something instead of waiting for things to happen to them.

“We needed this bad,” Boyd said. “Everybody needed this.”

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