UNLV players, coaches appreciate playing in historic stadiums

It’s another season and another iconic college football stadium for UNLV, which is gearing up for the school’s first game at the Rose Bowl at 5 p.m. Saturday against UCLA.

The Rebels (1-0) played at Michigan Stadium, aka The Big House, last season, and will play at Ohio Stadium, aka The Horseshoe, next year before taking on Southern California at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 2018.

“When you grow up watching college football, you always see The Big House or the Rose Bowl, so it’s a dream come true playing there,” UNLV senior center Will Kreitler said. “It’s going to be awesome.”

Rebels coach Tony Sanchez said playing at relatively close historic venues like the Rose Bowl and the Coliseum help recruiting.

“We really recruit Southern California hard so it’s a big deal to go back there and play,” he said Tuesday at his weekly news conference at UNLV. “Once the game starts, you don’t think about it much but … if you love the game, you love those iconic places. Being at The Big House, the Rose Bowl, those are neat things. I remember the first game I ever coached was at LSU. I’ll never forget that. That was a big deal.”

Sanchez said the team is scheduled to do a walk-through at the Rose Bowl on Friday afternoon to soak it all in.

“We do that at all away games,” he said. “I’m a big believer in visualization, getting to the stadium, seeing it, smelling it and walking through it.

“That night, when we talk to the team, we always tell them, ‘Go back to your room, close your eyes and see yourself having success, see yourself walking out of that tunnel.’ Having been there makes it a little more tangible. When you get to game day, it’s like you’ve been there before. ”

NO UNDERDOG MENTALITY

The Rebels, who lost 37-3 to the Bruins (0-1) last season at Sam Boyd Stadium, are 26½-point underdogs in Saturday’s game but don’t see themselves that way.

“We’re going in with the mindset of winning a football game. We’re not going in with the mindset of competing or making the margin closer,” Sanchez said. “We know how talented they are and we know it’s going to be an uphill battle at times. But we think there are things that, if we execute and communicate well, we’ll be able to take advantage of.”

INJURY REPORT

Sophomore wide receiver Brandon Presley is out this week with a foot injury. Presley, who took Kendal Keys’ starting spot after Keys had season-ending knee surgery, had one catch for 14 yards in UNLV’s 63-13 season-opening win over Jackson State on Thursday at Sam Boyd Stadium. True freshman Mekhi Stevenson, who had one catch for 11 yards in the opener, will start in Presley’s place.

■ Junior quarterback Kurt Palandech is still suffering from a sore right throwing shoulder and strained biceps that kept him out of the opener and will be the team’s No. 3 QB at UCLA behind starter Johnny Stanton and backup Dalton Sneed.

■ Sanchez limped around practice with the help of a crutch after suffering a sprained knee over the weekend. “I’ll rub some dirt on it and I’ll be fine,” he said. “I stepped in the wrong hole.”

OWENS TO REDSHIRT

Sanchez said UNLV plans to redshirt junior running back Evan Owens, a 6-foot-1-inch, 220-pound junior college transfer from San Joaquin Delta College.

STARKS REALITY

It’s unclear if UCLA junior running back Nate Starks, a former Bishop Gorman product, will play against UNLV. Starks helped the Gaels win the 2012 state title, rushing for 1,821 yards and 27 touchdowns, before getting dismissed from the school late in his junior year for violating school rules. The Bruins’ third-leading rusher last season (320 yards, five TDs), Starks didn’t make the trip to Texas A&M because of a coach’s decision by Jim Mora, who declined to say Tuesday whether Starks would play Saturday.

“That remains to be seen,” Mora said. “We’ll see on game day if we put him in or not.”

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow on Twitter: @tdewey33