Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Critical signing day approaching for UNLV football

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Steve Marcus

UNLV Rebels head coach Marcus Arroyo watches play during the first half of an NCAA college football game against the Eastern Washington Eagles at Allegiant Stadium Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021, in Las Vegas.

UNLV football hasn’t played a game in three weeks and won’t take the field again until spring practice begins four months from now, but this might still be the most important week of Marcus Arroyo’s tenure as head coach.

With early signing day looming on Wednesday, the pressure is on Arroyo to reel in a foundational recruiting class that will not only set up the program for future success, but also immediately plug some rather significant holes in the roster.

And judging by what UNLV has been able to accomplish on the recruiting trail so far, he might just pull it off.

Arroyo’s 2020 and 2021 recruiting classes succeeded in raising the program’s overall talent level, notably producing back-to-back Mountain West Freshman of the Year winners in receiver Kyle Williams (2020) and quarterback Cameron Friel (2021). The 2022 group must continue that trend, and that’s why Arroyo and his staff hit the road immediately after the season finale to shore up their top recruiting targets.

Heading into his third offseason at the helm, Arroyo anticipates the 2022 class will be a mixture of promising high-school recruits and experienced transfers.

“We’re recruiting very aggressively, as usual,” Arroyo said in his season-ending press conference. “We’re optimistic about that. I plan to use the transfer portal to our advantage the best we can, like a jigsaw puzzle, and plug and play some things in with some younger guys, which will be awesome.”

The first order of business for UNLV will be stocking the depth chart with talent. By the end of the 2021 campaign the scarlet and gray were banged up, injured and forced to use several players out of position just to field a full team.

After seeing his team lose the battle of attrition, Arroyo wants to add more good players across the board.

“I think the beauty of us being young and inexperienced is we’re going to take guys at every spot,” Arroyo said. “We’re maximizing our numbers. We’re going to take a handful of wide receivers, we already got a quarterback. O-line, D-line, corners, linebackers, all of it...We’re not set at any position.

“Our message and our thought is you need to upgrade at every position,” he continued. “Out-recruit your current talent to the best of your ability.”

UNLV will be able to take up to 32 incoming players in the 2022 class, and Arroyo said he expects roughly half of those roster spots to be filled during the early signing period. The rest of the scholarships will be earmarked for the February signing period, and he left open the possibility of saving some spots into spring practice in case an intriguing transfer becomes available late in the process.

UNLV already has commitments from 10 players, with five high schoolers, four junior-college prospects and one college transfer making up that group. The highest ranked high school recruits are 3-star receiver Randy Masters out of Houston (Yates High School), 3-star quarterback Jayden Maiava of Las Vegas (Liberty) and 3-star linebacker Tanner Salisbury of Danville, Calif. (San Ramon Valley). Juco linebacker Fred Thompkins is rated No. 5 at his position by 247Sports, and former Fresno State defensive lineman Isaiah Johnson committed to UNLV shortly after the regular season ended.

One position to watch on signing day is quarterback. UNLV has Maiava in the fold, and Friel and Doug Brumfield will return in 2022, but that doesn’t mean the program is standing pat. With another QB competition likely to last through the offseason, Arroyo is open to the idea of adding an experienced passer if one becomes available via the portal.

“If there’s another [quarterback] we feel who can add value, then we could potentially go down that road,” Arroyo said.

UNLV’s offensive line struggled through much of the 2022 season as Arroyo worked to integrate younger players into the rotation, and he wants to continue adding talent to that position group. So keep an eye on Coronado tackle Noah McKinney, a 6-foot-5, 290-pound blocker who committed to UNLV in September. UNLV was his first Division I offer, but he has since gained recruiting momentum to the point where he took an official visit to Syracuse last weekend.

Can Arroyo and his staff get McKinney to sign on the dotted line, or will another school pry him away at the last minute? That will be one of many key developments on a very important signing day.

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

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