Northern Illinois quarterback Hare poses challenge for UNLV

One of the maxims in football is if you have two quarterbacks, you really have none.

Northern Illinois trumped such thinking by going 2-0 with three quarterbacks to begin this season.

But now even the Huskies are down to one, with redshirt sophomore Drew Hare separating himself Saturday at Northwestern to capture the starting job. Unlike the two prior games, Hare will have the position alone when the Huskies play UNLV at 4 p.m. Saturday at Sam Boyd Stadium.

“I just think with quarterback you name a guy and your intentions are to play him the whole game, and that’s what our’s are,” Huskies coach Rod Carey said. “Obviously, we’ll see how the game’s going and see where it leads, but our intentions are that Drew will be the guy.”

Hare was the third quarterback in the game at Northwestern, and he threw two touchdown passes to lead the Huskies to a 23-15 victory. He also rushed for 31 yards and a touchdown in operating the zone-read offense.

“He stood in there and threw the ball well and made some timely throws when he had to,” Carey said. “His reads were good from the pass game to the run game and how he operated our offense. Overall, it was just a pretty good performance. I wouldn’t call it good or great, I would call it pretty good, and I think he would echo the same thing after seeing it on film. Fundamentally, there are a lot of things he needs to get cleaned up in his play, just with his own fundamentals, and he’ll go to work on that this week.”

The zone read gave UNLV plenty of problems in its season-opening 58-13 defeat at Arizona.

“It’s not identical by any stretch, but there are some similarities to Arizona,” UNLV coach Bobby Hauck said. “Obviously, we didn’t play them very well, so we’ve got to get them on the ground. We didn’t do that at Arizona.”

THREE-STEP DROP

■ Seven Northern Illinois players, including four running backs, had carries against Northwestern. “It’s the challenge of stockpiling guys,” Carey said. “I think it’s a matter of a lot of them have earned the right to touch the ball, and you have to get them the ball. That’s what we do, and we’re going to continue to do that. I just think that’s important.”

■ UNLV and Northern Illinois used to be members of the same conference. They last played each other in 1995 when both schools competed in the Big West Conference. The Rebels left for the Western Athletic Conference the following year. UNLV hopes for a different outcome than that most recent meeting, a 62-14 victory by the Huskies.

■ This is the Rebels’ last home game for nearly a month. They embark on a three-week span of games at Houston, San Diego State and San Jose State before returning to Sam Boyd Stadium on Oct. 10 to play Fresno State. The last time UNLV played three consecutive road games in a season was in 2005, and the Rebels lost all three. The last time they played at least three away games in a row was at the end of the 2010 season and beginning in 2011. UNLV went 0-4 in that stretch.

FOR THE RECORD

■ Devante Davis entered his senior season with 18 career touchdown catches, tied for fifth in UNLV history. He hasn’t moved off that spot, but has gone up to sixth in career receptions with 162 and eighth in yards with 2,304.

■ Northern Illinois has won 48 games in the past four years, tied with Alabama for second nationally to Oregon’s 49.

■ UNLV’s Marcus Sullivan leads the Mountain West with a 27.2-yard kickoff return average. He also is the Rebels’ career leader with a 26.7 average.

Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow him on Twitter:@markanderson65.