College Sports Chaos: New UNLV football coach gets players to buy in, avoid transfer portal

It wasn’t a mass exodus. Hardly.

UNLV football more than survived what can be a traditional post-spring practice run to the transfer portal by players seeking a new home.

Most of the Rebels’ most critical pieces stuck around to play under first-year coach Dan Mullen.

Impactful players have bought in.

That’s a good thing for the Rebels.

“You know, when you look at the number of guys that stayed, the amount of talent that stayed here, I think what you’re seeing is the guys believing,” Mullen said following his team’s final spring scrimmage in April. “I feel great. I mean, to have so few guys actually leave the program.”

Walk-on update

Many who left were of the walk-on variety, meaning those who might be impacted by the impending House vs. NCAA settlement and its proposed roster limits.

In football, rosters would be capped at 105, which is expected to lead to potential cuts at schools.

But attorneys handling the settlement recently suggested those athletes who lose their spots but have eligibility remaining should be offered a chance to play while not counting against the limit.

“I talked to a lot of the walk-ons,” Mullen said. “We’re waiting for the (settlement) ruling. I said, ‘You’re welcome to stay if they’re allowed to be part of the program. You’re all welcome to stay.’

“If you want to go explore, you’re not going to lose your roster spot, in my mind — if you do go to the portal. Most of our guys in the portal are walk-on guys that know they have the spot here. They want to just see what the opportunity is for them elsewhere, depending on how the House case ends up and then how the settlement ends up.”

Mullen said the most important factor is to adapt. You really at no time during the process know how many players might bolt for different pastures.

You can have a meeting one day and believe there are 30 or so spots available. You can have a meeting another day and realize you just need to fill five or six spots. It’s a never-ending cycle of trying your best to keep most of the players around.

“You really have no idea (a lot of the time),” Mullen said. “It might be just to add those pieces that will hopefully put us in a position to go compete for a championship.

“I mean, obviously there’s tampering, and you’ll see. I mean, it’s pretty easy to see where guys end up. Whether people called them illegally or not, you’ll just see where they end up. Not that hard to figure out.”

One of the top transfers UNLV landed was Justin Flowe, a former five-star recruit who played at Oregon and Arizona. He was ranked as the nation’s No. 1 inside linebacker out of Upland (California) High School by 247Sports.

He began his career with the Ducks before transferring to Arizona.

But the Rebels also lost linebacker Charles Correa to the portal. He left to sign with Purdue and former coach Barry Odom. So it goes both ways. Some good players arrive and others leave.

Come develop

“I think guys are here for the right reasons,” Mullen said. “I think it’s part of the recruiting, part of the coaching, part of the development. And, you know, if you’re here for all the right reasons, it’s pretty easy to stick around and be part of the program. They see where the program is at. They see the camaraderie we have.

“They see our opportunity to compete and win a championship. We talk about it all the time. A lot of places skip the development part. We talk about it. Come to work every day, come develop, come get better and let’s be a team that sticks together to go win a championship. And so this is a great place to be.”

Seems like a majority of players think so.

There was no mass exodus. Hardly.

Guys have bought into Mullen and his message.

It’s a promising start for a team with big plans and even bigger dreams.

Contact Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com. Follow @edgraney on X.