The crowd spread across the pavement near the Student Union and onto adjacent stairwells Monday, hundreds gathered to celebrate a rivalry victory in football and the promise of what still might transpire for UNLV in the coming weeks.
Football
Almost every time the Dallas Cowboys snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the scapegoat is quarterback Tony Romo, whether he deserves to be or not.
In an era when so many NFL coaches seem drained of personality, it’s cool to see how Pete Carroll handles the Seattle Seahawks. He has a college-type enthusiasm and an ability to think outside the box.
It’s not quite the halfway point of the NFL season, and what happens from here will be as unpredictable as a drunken night on Bourbon Street. Still, it’s safe to say quarterback Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints are wholly relevant again.
Forty-four years ago, it was 1969. Bullets were flying in Southeast Asia. And Mark Larson said it was getting dark at Mackay Stadium up in Reno.
The Rebels never were going to beat Fresno State. But that’s not to say UNLV shouldn’t contend to win each of its final five games and in the process qualify for the program’s first bowl since 2000.
Every once in a while, a football game lives up to extreme hype and maybe even exceeds it. Lately, most of those games involve Peyton Manning.
While all eyes are focused on his big brother this weekend, Eli Manning is staring down a big game of his own. The New York Giants are winless, and no team wants to wear that black eye into late October.
What’s most important to bettors is how to cash tickets this week and, in the big picture, how to handicap explosive offensive teams such as Oregon. The Ducks scare the heck out of bookmakers, who are not setting lines high enough, and sharp bettors, who usually prefer to buy underdogs when the price appears inflated.
Nolan Kohorst is not for dramatics, which is all the more ironic when you consider the spot he holds on a football team. But his is a simple, candid study of how many college coaches might view a kicker when deciding whether to offer a scholarship.
A game up for grabs came down to an unlikely play. A perfectly thrown ball into the back of the end zone, a great catch and a comeback win. Drew Brees had pulled a rabbit out of his helmet and beat the New England Patriots again.
It has been bad, it can get worse, and it could become humiliating. How low can Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers go?
UNLV expects a crowd in the range of 25,000 Saturday when the Rebels host Hawaii, and anything short of it would disappoint given a few factors: UNLV will try to win a fourth straight regular-season game for the first time since 1984, and Hawaii’s healthy and passionate fan base wants nothing more than to trample such thoughts.
In the absence of coach Sean Payton, the New Orleans Saints were stumbling down the stairs in the dark, with last season turning into a lost cause before it even got started.
Bishop Gorman football coach Tony Sanchez has this philosophy, that whenever you give an inch, something happens. “You become a loser,” he says.
