Uncle Si of “Duck Dynasty” is 65 and struggles staying on task, so he often takes midday naps and plays with the security equipment around the family business. I officially am nominating him as special teams coach for UNLV’s football team.
Football
UNLV coach Bobby Hauck looked at the scoreboard at one point in the second half and saw his team had outgained Minnesota 420 yards to 234. By those numbers, the game shouldn’t have been close. And it wasn’t.
UNLV looked like a spread team during training camp, and they looked like one during Thursday’s 51-23 loss at Minnesota, often going with three- and four-receiver sets.
HOW THEY SCORED
Mark Wallington, UNLV’s sports information director for football, asked coach Bobby Hauck for the season’s initial injury report to hand out to the media on Monday. Hauck didn’t have any names to put on the sheet.
Tim Cornett, from Houston, enters his senior season 700 yards behind UNLV all-time leading rusher Mike Thomas. If Cornett stays healthy and averages the 94.8 yards he gained last season, he would overtake Thomas on Oct. 26 at UNR.
The outcome of UNLV’s football season — and of coach Bobby Hauck’s future — should quickly become crystal clear. UNLV, after opening at Minnesota at 4 p.m. PDT today and then against Arizona at Sam Boyd Stadium, faces a four-game stretch in which it might be favored each week.
The Mountain West has a new look, but the same sort of outcome is expected.
There have been 26 college football seasons since I first rolled across Hoover Dam. There have been three winning ones. It could be argued the Rebels’ run of futility over the past quarter-century is unsurpassed.
We’re hours away from the start of UNLV’s 2013 football campaign. These 5 games — including Thursday night’s opener — could make or break the season for the Rebels and Coach Bobby Hauck.
The piped-in crowd noise at Rebel Park was loud Monday night, but Nick Sherry kept his cool and lofted a pass toward the back left corner of the end zone to wide receiver Marcus Sullivan.
Not much was expected of UNLV when it opened last football season against Minnesota. The Rebels were 8½-point underdogs in the home game, but took the Big Ten Conference foe to three overtimes before losing, 30-27.
In the next few months, Neal Smatresk will introduce the school’s 12th full-time athletic director — who will take over a troubled department with shaky finances, a struggling football program and a poor relationship with the Thomas & Mack Center.
I absolutely believe that within the next 80 or so years, perhaps around the time Bobby Hauck’s great-great-great grandson is arm wrestling elks in Montana, UNLV will navigate through a schedule unscathed. Here’s why it could happen this season.
UNLV’s first-year coordinators arrived in Ely with plenty of questions about their players. They left here Wednesday with many more answers, saying most of their top priorities were met as the Rebels returned to Las Vegas.
