What comes with being a 26½-point underdog? UNLV will receive $1.35 million for its trip to where the “Touchdown Jesus” mural exists beyond the north end zone.
Ed Graney
Ed Graney is a sports columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, covering a variety of topics and the Las Vegas sports scene.
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Matt Fyle, who has made his mark in the realm of strength and conditioning, leads that part of UNLV’s program, a major reason the Rebels have become bigger, faster and stronger.
UNLV, under first-year coach Kevin Kruger, lost to No. 4 Michigan on Friday night, but the Rebels stayed with the Wolverines for most of 40 minutes.
Kevin Kruger, who led the Rebels to an NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 while playing for his father, was named the program’s new head coach on Sunday.
If you were to put pen to paper and describe the hopes and dreams of those at UNLV when it comes to building football at a Group of Five institution, it would likely resemble more of the Red Wolves than you might imagine from a place so far away and dissimilar.
The reality of being a Group of Five football program in 2018 is that you can’t be 80 or 90 or even 99 percent in and stand even the minuscule chance you already have of being relevant.
It’s either coaching or players or both for the Rebels, and yet perhaps all of the defensive nonsense has over time created a sort of systematic culture that breeds an expectation of failure.
The win total released last week by the Golden Nugget for UNLV in 2016 would spell doom and gloom at countless programs across the country, but it should produce a different reaction in Las Vegas.
You can never underestimate the spirit of sports, those intangibles that make certain athletes rise to the occasion when all seems lost in a season, when your bench has been reduced to the point your basketball coach spent part of his day before a conference game against your biggest rival glancing at the school’s football roster.
When it comes to selling the idea that getting to the NBA would be best accomplished at a particular college, UNLV’s coaching staff ranks among the finest nationally in delivering such a message. Dave Rice and his assistants own the most important of factors in such recruiting wars: tangible evidence.
Kent Baer would be smart to remind those UNLV football players he now coaches that you can’t begin the next chapter of your life by continuing to read the last one. One can only take so many horror stories.
Is there such a thing as a season-defining moment for a college basketball team in just its fourth game? For UNLV, it will find out Saturday.
History is pretty clear on this: You can’t begin listing the greatest Final Four games and not mention many — Magic vs. Larry in 1979, Texas Western and its all-black starting five vs. Kentucky in 1966, Jim Valvano looking for someone to hug in 1983, Villanova slaying Georgetown in 1985 — before reaching games between UNLV and Duke in 1990 and 1991.
Kids are interested in uniforms and depth charts. Parents in academics. Neither really cares that the Rebels are 2-5 this season.
Of all the goals UNLV might have scribbled on the board before this season, a major one still is attainable and as much as anything would offer tangible proof of those positive steps the Rebels have made during Coach Bobby Hauck’s fourth season.
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