What does coach Sanchez say about Saturday’s game against Boise State?

The Las Vegas Review-Journal is beginning a new weekly feature of highlighting UNLV football coach Tony Sanchez's top quotes at his news conference each Tuesday.

The Rebels (2-5, 1-2 Mountain West) play Boise State (6-2, 3-1) at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Sam Boyd Stadium. ESPNU will televise the game.

On getting back quarterback Blake Decker, who missed the past two games because of a dislocated shoulder:

"It's big. Obviously, he's really comfortable back there. He does a really good job of getting us in and out of the huddle a lot faster. He's got a lot of experience, so we've got to keep him healthy. Hopefully, that will get our offense kicked into gear for an entire game. We've had good spurts. We've had good quarters. But I don't know if we've truly put together a good four quarters of football offensively, so that's something we need to work on."

On UNLV trying to build a program similarly to what Boise State has accomplished:

"We're not going to be excuse makers. You're never going to see me sit in front of a mic and go, 'Well, we didn't win because ...' or 'We don't have this.' Here's an excuse and here's an excuse. We're going to find a way to win. The road may be a little tougher than others' roads, but we're going to keep on the path. We've got a great plan. We've got a great coaching staff. We have a great kids currently here. We're going to go out and recruit great kids, and we're going to win some games.

"What's the timeline to get to where Boise is? How long did it take them, 20 years? We don't want it to take 20 years. It can be faster. I just gave you (the media) the example of Baylor. In 10 years, they went from a 3-8 team to a team that can win a national title. Why? Resources and a commitment from the university."

On how Sanchez would rate his performance a little more than midway through his first season:

"I think myself, I think our staff, our guys have all done a good job. We're not satisfied with it, and as a competitor, you never will be, but we are not worrying about judging ... or any of that stuff right now. It's all ridiculous talk. We've got five games to go, so the focus is on Boise. What we've done in the past so far, we'll evaluate that when the season's over. What we're going to continue to do, we'll evaluate that when the season's over."

On defending Boise State's offense and dual threat Jeremy McNichols:

"Offensively, they're going to show you so many different formations, so many kind of one-hit plays. They're trying to get you to be misaligned, and they're going to run personnel groups on and off the field at the last second. The ref is going to have to slow it down and let you get set. So people that really struggle getting lined up and try to do too much defensively give up big plays.

"They're going to do a lot of things to try to create set pieces for (McNichols) in the passing game, in the running game. They're going to use him a lot of different ways. The biggest thing for us is getting lined up and doing a great job of tackling."

On Boise State possibly being without its two starting offensive tackles and what that might mean for UNLV's pass rush:

"We've got to use that. We've struggled creating a pass rush with four guys. We have to do a better job of that so we don't always have to bring pressure, but I think there are opportunities out there to put pressure on (Broncos quarterback Brett) Rypien. We want him to get the ball out of his hands early and get some sacks."

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