UNLV’s biggest issue to tackle is tackling

PASADENA, Calif. — It was Tuesday when Tony Sanchez looked ahead, convinced those few areas of weakness shown in a season-opening blowout victory by his UNLV football team could be erased by the time the Rebels engaged UCLA on Saturday.

One particular concern was tackling.

UNLV wasn’t very good at it for spells against Jackson State, even in a 50-point win.

“We have to get better there,” Sanchez said. “We need to be sharper. You don’t want to give a team like UCLA a second chance. We focus on (tackling) so much. We talk about it so much. We do our tackle circuit every single day. It’s something that we constantly preach.

“Between Week 1 and Week 2, you should see your greatest jump in all that stuff. I don’t care what phase it is. Your largest improvement and growth is between Week 1 and Week 2. We want to see it, especially in that phase.”

His wait has become much longer.

More competitive than losing to UCLA last season, the Rebels on Saturday still offered far too many errors and missed way too many tackles to think they could depart the Rose Bowl a winner, falling to the Bruins 42-21 before an announced gathering of 63,712.

Sanchez demands his team never promote or accept the notion of moral victories, but the fact UNLV was within 28-21 early in the fourth quarter more than suggests the improvement most believe has occurred from last season to this is accurate.

The Rebels are better. That’s obvious.

But over the next 10 games, UNLV will often encounter teams fairly close to its level, those 50-50 matchups where a bad pass here or a missed tackle there could ultimately decide the Rebels’ fate as a team that flirts with bowl eligibility or suffers yet another losing season.

Fact: If they don’t begin tackling and wrapping up better than what we have seen these first two games, the former has little chance at happening.

UCLA scored touchdowns on its first four possessions, when it converted all six third-down plays and two on fourth down. If they weren’t over-pursuing the ball, UNLV defenders were bouncing off bodies they needed to put on the ground.

They never applied much pressure on UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen during that opening stretch of scores and things really got bad when Soso Jamabo of the Bruins swept left, hit a wall of players, reversed field and ran what seemed like 40 yards to score from 23.

Yeah. It was as bad a play for UNLV’s defense as it looked.

“We didn’t execute well enough,” said senior linebacker Ryan McAleenan, whose 14 tackles were twice as many as any teammate. “Missing tackles really hurt us in this game. Their (success on third down) definitely goes back to the missed tackles. We didn’t tackle as we should have. We didn’t tackle like we practice. It definitely hurt us.”

They adjusted well enough at halftime, holding UCLA to zero third-quarter points and just 43 yards, allowing UNLV to enter the final 15 minutes down just a touchdown and owning the hope that a 26-point underdog could come into this historic venue and shock the oddsmakers and all those who never dreamed such an upset could occur.

It wasn’t meant to be, mostly because UCLA, which hardly looks like world-beaters in any sense, executed two scoring drives that totaled 23 plays and ate up 8:43 of the clock, one aided by a questionable targeting penalty against UNLV safety Kenny Keys, who appeared to make contact with Eldridge Massington’s shoulder and not directly his helmet.

The call came on third-and-10, got Keys ejected (meaning he will miss the first half of UNLV’s game at Central Michigan on Saturday) and continued a UCLA drive that resulted in a touchdown five plays later. It didn’t help that Keys launched his body at Massington and really didn’t help Keys’ cause that his helmet came off after the collision.

Sound tackling hasn’t been a staple of UNLV’s defense in what seems like forever, and it’s true teams more and more now do less live drills in fall camp for the sake of protecting against injury. But the Rebels need to figure things out when it comes to not allowing additional yards after initial contact.

They better start wrapping people up, or those 50-50 games are more apt to go in favor of the opponents.

“I’m concerned,” Sanchez said. “I am. We also had missed tackles toward the end in the fourth quarter. From a coaching standpoint, you get upset with guys if you know it’s not a point of emphasis or you’re not working on it constantly. (Defensive coordinator Kent Baer) harps on it every day and it was our No. 1 thing going into this game. We had to do a great job of tackling and for two weeks in a row, we’ve missed some. We have to go back and work on that.”

His hope: UNLV will see its largest improvement and growth in tackling between Weeks 2 and 3.

If not, a trip to Mount Pleasant, Michigan, will be anything but.

Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. On Twitter: @edgraney.