Graney: Narrative hasn’t changed for UNLV — Boise State is just better
BOISE, Idaho – The scoreboard didn’t lie.
Another football game between UNLV and Boise State.
Another afternoon when the guys in blue were a better team.
They have been one for some time now, not just against the Rebels but the entire Mountain West. Boise State is the league’s premier program and likely will continue such a claim in the Pac-12 when bolting there next season.
This one ended with Boise State a 56-31 winner at Albertsons Stadium, a game that got away from the Rebels in the second half when one mistake compounded another and so on.
It’s the same narrative as the last two Mountain West championship games. UNLV just wasn’t good enough. It’s awfully tough to chase Boise State and expect to find success.
It’s a tough lesson to learn for the Rebels but perhaps one they needed to.
Your flaws are hidden more when you win and UNLV had rolled off six straight victories to begin the season under new coach Dan Mullen.
Little defense
Even then, it was obvious there were far too many mistakes and missed assignments defensively, far too obvious that side of the ball was struggling to discover any sense of consistency.
It happened again Saturday, the Rebels allowing 12 plays of 20 yards or more. The Broncos would score three touchdowns of 32 or more yards. Just huge chunk plays.
Unless fixed, it’s going to allow most conference teams to stay in games with UNLV and have a chance to win. Unless fixed, what could be a special season just might turn out to be a very good or good one.
“Just trying to be a team leader and tell everybody that no matter what’s going on or what the score is, stay together and keep fighting until the clock says triple zeros,” senior linebacker Marsel McDuffie said. “You have to watch the film. It’s going to hurt. But you have to own up to it and take it on the chin and learn from our mistakes. It starts with everyone doing their job and being much more disciplined, myself included.”
It’s one thing UNLV’s defense lacks most snaps. Discipline is so incredibly important when trying to stop a side like Boise State. It takes just one guy being out of his lane for a big play to materialize. And, boy, did they ever Saturday.
Until now, UNLV’s offense was able to overcome those defensive deficiencies. But on a clear and crisp afternoon here, that wasn’t the case.
Little things killed UNLV. Things you can’t do and expect to beat most teams, much less Boise State on its blue turf. The Rebels had four false stars in the first half alone.
They were 4-of-13 on third down. They had a pick six brought back 60 yards that essentially ended the game late in the third quarter. Negative yardage plays hurt them at critical times. They had dropped passes. They missed some protections. They had a guy go the wrong way on a play. They had another run the wrong play.
They needed to be a whole lot better given how poor the defense played.
Coach ’em up
“You can control a lot of that with coaching,” Mullen said. “We’re not going to stop coaching. We have to coach them up and get them right and get them moving forward. There are things we need to be better at. When we do things well, we’re a pretty good football team. We have some talent in the room. We just have to make sure as coaches that our talent is executing.”
So now you do as McDuffie said — you watch the film and learn from it. You use the upcoming bye week to figure out how to improve a reeling defense. You get back to work.
“I think the biggest thing is to keep our heads up,” quarterback Anthony Colandrea said. “It sucks. We have to sit on it. But we can get better and see what we did wrong. It’s not fun, but at the end of the day, we have to have a great response.”
Same teams, same narrative.
The guys in blue were just better, is all.
Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.
