UNLV football staggered by blowout loss at San Jose State

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Friday, Oct. 7, 2022 | 11:39 p.m.

Before Marcus Arroyo began his post-game press conference on Friday night, a staffer apologized for not yet having a box score printed out for the UNLV head coach.

“That’s okay,” Arroyo said. “I don’t need to see the stats for this one.”

Indeed, what happened on the field over the previous 60 minutes was plainly evident, regardless of what the numbers said. The reality was, San Jose State dominated the upstart Scarlet and Gray from beginning to end in a 40-7 rout.

If anything, the result was worse than the stat sheet, as UNLV not only lost a big game, but possibly their best player, as quarterback Doug Brumfield exited early in the second quarter with concussion symptoms.

So while UNLV came into this Friday night showdown hoping to announce themselves as a Mountain West contender, Arroyo and his squad leave San Jose imbued with a creeping doubt about the course their season will take from here.

San Jose State proved itself the superior team, even when Brumfield was in the game. The Spartans’ first possession was a 12-play, 76-yard touchdown drive, and they followed that up with another 12-play, 80-yard TD march to make it 14-0. On the other side of the ball, Brumfield opened the game completing just 1-of-6 passes; UNLV punted on its first three possessions, and on their fourth drive Brumfield took a hit that eventually forced him to leave the field.

Sophomore Cameron Friel came off the bench and on his second play a shotgun snap escaped his grasp. San Jose State fell on the loose ball, and SJSU quarterback Chevan Cordeiro scrambled for a 15-yard touchdown on the very next play to make it 20-0, and the blowout was on.

Friel finished with an admirable line, hitting 15-of-22 passes for 153 yards and one touchdown, but as Arroyo said, stats were unnecessary to tell the story of the game.

Afterward, Arroyo said Brumfield is being evaluated for a head injury but offered no timetable for an update.

“He got tackled to the ground with his head, so we’ve got to see,” Arroyo said. “We’ve got to see what the medical professionals say. We’ll see how he responds.”

If Brumfield is out for any length of time, it could threaten UNLV’s season. The sophomore slinger had been a revelation coming into Friday, having completed 70.5% of his passes for 1,223 yards with eight touchdowns and two interceptions.

The loss drops UNLV to 4-2 on the year and 2-1 in Mountain West play. San Jose State improves to 4-1 overall and 2-0 in conference, giving the Spartans the early inside track in the West Division.

UNLV is about to enter the most difficult portion of its schedule, with games vs. Air Force (Oct. 15), at Notre Dame (Oct. 22), at San Diego State (Nov. 5) and vs. Fresno State (Nov. 11) lined up.

While it may not be the best time for the team’s breakout star quarterback to go down, UNLV is still ahead of the curve. Qualifying for a bowl game is the goal, and the Scarlet and Gray are still on track.

Arroyo expressed that he wants his players to take Friday’s unsightly loss for what it is, while still remaining focused on the big picture.

“You’ve just got to be honest with yourself,” Arroyo said. “We’re 4-2. We’re playing good ball. You get punched in the face like that, you’ve got to respond. There’s a lot of season left. We’ve got to get healthy, guys have got to step up. Everything is still in front of us.”

Senior linebacker Austin Ajiake echoed that attitude, and it sounds like UNLV is ready to move on and turn the page to the all-important second half of the schedule.

“It sucks that it happened like this. This is not how we envisioned this game going, but I don’t want to just leave it like that,” Ajiake said. “I want to find a way that we can turn this into a positive and we can learn from it. We’ve still got a lot of games left. It’s a long season.”

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