Experience lessens Rebels’ uncertainty as camp goes north

This is a different type of training camp for UNLV’s football team as it shifts to Ely Saturday for 12 days of practices.

Because most of the lineup is experienced and in place, the Rebels won’t spend as much time teaching and trying to decide positions.

But coaches still have plenty of questions they hope get answered before the Aug. 29 season opener at Minnesota.

Offensively, most of the starters are set, though questions remain, especially at right guard and perhaps at the receiver spots, where juniors Devante Davis and Marcus Sullivan are the returning starters.

Davis and Sullivan combined to catch 116 passes for 1,513 yards and eight touchdowns last season but combined for just three 100-yard games. Davis, in particular, was outstanding in catching eight passes for 186 yards at Louisiana Tech and seven for 145 yards against New Mexico, but he had six games in which he had fewer than 50 yards receiving.

“At receiver, we really have some depth,” offensive coordinator Timm Rosenbach said. “We’ve got some competition there. It’s not like we feel like, ‘You can’t put this guy in or you can’t put that guy in.’ I like that position.”

He also likes what he has at quarterback in sophomore Nick Sherry, who had the best passing season for a UNLV quarterback since 1997. But Sherry also threw 17 interceptions to 16 touchdowns, with seven picks in his final three games.

UNLV was eighth in the Mountain West last season in turnover margin, at minus-6. The Rebels lost six fumbles.

“We’ve got to preach taking ownership of the football,” said Rosenbach, who quarterbacked Washington State from 1986 to 1988. “You’re talking to a guy who was once the Pac-10 record holder in interceptions. You’ve got to preach it, preach it, preach it, and then you’ve got to emphasize it in practice and in meetings.”

On defense, positions will be in play most notably at safety and on the line.

David Greene, who didn’t start last season, ran with the first team at safety Friday morning instead of fellow sophomore Kenny Keys, who is listed atop the depth chart. Mississippi transfer Frank Crawford, who was cleared to begin practices Friday, also could figure into the mix.

Up front, the Rebels have three junior college linemen in camp, a sure sign of the coaches’ wish to improve that area. It would have been four, but Pingi Moli is academically ineligible until at least January.

Defensive coordinator Tim Hauck is concerned about improving every area of a defense that has given up more than 32 points and 420 yards per game in each of the past five seasons.

“We haven’t been very good on defense, so nobody’s guaranteed anything right now,” he said. “They’re going to have to fight for that job, and they’re going to have to fight to keep it. They’re a pretty motivated group, and they’ve come a million miles in the last three years. We need to push them, and they need to push each other.

“The talent on this team is coming up, and the young guys are pushing older guys.”

He also knows the Rebels can’t play it safe, as they often have done in the past, and they will spend time in Ely working on blitz packages.

“If we could play a four-man front, sit back in cover-2 all day, we’d do it,” Tim Hauck said. “But I don’t believe we can do that, so we’ve got to have a lot of different things we can do, whether it’s cover-4, whether it’s pressure, whether it’s man, or whatever. We’re going to be very diverse, so hopefully offenses aren’t dictating to us what we do.”

Along with getting the team ready for the season, coaches have begun preparing for Minnesota. Some of the game plan, especially as it relates to defending the option, slowly and subtly has been implemented in practice.

“It’s always a race against the clock to get to the first game,” coach Bobby Hauck said. “We’re going to be on time with that.”

Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow him on Twitter: @markanderson65.