Avoiding ignominy a positive for Rebels

UNLV played its annual game against a Football Championship Subdivision opponent at Sam Boyd Stadium on Saturday night. The official stat sheet said only 16,717 were on hand to watch the Rebels tally a school-record 80 points — Idaho State had 8 — and do chest bumps on the sideline.

Blame the turnout on the quality of the opponent, four winning seasons in the past 28, on the fact the pope's U.S. tour is winding down but isn't quite over.

But mostly blame it on the quality of the opponent.

Idaho State was awful, or at least awfully overmatched.

At halftime, the Rebels led 52-8. They received a standing ovation from the modest crowd as they trotted off the field. No one could remember when that last happened.

Idaho State returned to its dressing room to work on that special teams play where Charlie Brown tries to kick the football, and Lucy pulls it away at the last second.

After the game, coach Tony Sanchez said Idaho State was a good team that would bounce back. This is what coaches say. (Except for maybe Jim Harbaugh.) He said he didn't care if UNLV won by one point or by 50. This is also what coaches say.

The modest crowd bore witness to something that resembled manslaughter, and to Sanchez's first victory as a college coach after he posted lots of victories as a high school coach at Bishop Gorman. Sanchez almost always had the best players at Gorman.

On Saturday night, he had the better players, by far, against Idaho State.

So this was a game the Rebels (1-3) were expected to win, though they had struggled against teams of this caliber during the Bobby Hauck administration. The Rebels lost to Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, and those were embarrassing defeats, and last season they escaped 13-12 against Northern Colorado, and that was an embarrassing victory.

"This is a week we've struggled with at UNLV," Sanchez said of scheduling college football small fries. But that was then and this is now, and now seems a little different.

Even the first three losses of this season against the bigger and super-sized fries — Northern Illinois, UCLA, Michigan — seemed to offer promise of a better tomorrow, or at least of a better week or two down the road when the schedule got softer.

So credit Sanchez and his staff and his team for avoiding additional ignominy, and for setting multiple school records, and for getting impressive height on those chest bumps. And for sparking thoughts of a better tomorrow, or at least of a reasonable showing at UNR next week.

This one never was going to be a one-point victory. It was hard to find fault with anything UNLV did, which, like that standing ovation, doesn't happen often around here.

Yes, the Rebels tried their usual fake punt. Which failed, of course. But it still was 35-0 after the first quarter.

Regardless of what he said afterward about keeping a low profile on the sideline, Tony Sanchez was well on his way to chest bumping every Rebel on scholarship, and half the walk-ons. He also was well on his way to career victory No. 1.

Somewhere within shouting distance of a Golden Dome, Gerry Faust's Irish eyes probably were smiling.

It took Faust, another coach who tried to make the considerable leap from the Catholic high school ranks to D-I when D-I teams still rushed the ball on offense, only one game to post his first college win.

Notre Dame beat Louisiana State 27-9 — what, only 27 points? — in the 1981 season opener and immediately was voted No. 1. But the next week, the Fighting Irish lost to Michigan. And a couple of seasons later, Notre Dame's "Bold Experiment" — as the hiring of Faust from the Catholic school ranks was called — was over.

UNLV also lost to Michigan last week, but the Rebels earned respect by playing well on defense. Plus, the expectations on Sanchez aren't nearly as unrealistic as they were on Gerry Faust. I'm fairly certain UNLV fans are willing to give him until next season to guide the Rebels to a minor bowl game owned by ESPN.

So a victory over an awfully overmatched Idaho State team was a start, even if UNLV's power rating might suffer because of it.

The Rebels made long runs and multiple interceptions (four) and even blocked a field goal that led to a wild and crazy return by Tim Hough of Desert Pines High School that might have been a candidate for Plays of the Day, if the game had been shown on real TV instead of on streaming video.

But long-suffering UNLV fans apparently are not easily swayed by a thorough and history-making domination of an inferior opponent.

With six minutes left before halftime and the Rebels leading 42-8, a longtime Rebels rooter put up a Twitter post that said he still wasn't feeling completely comfortable.

After the game, an athletic department official made his way through the press box offering the media free beers as they wrote their stories. He said UNLV does this every time it scores 80 points.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.