Missed opportunities doom UNLV in 30-14 loss at Northwestern

EVANSTON, Ill. — In the wake of a blowout home loss, UNLV football coach Tony Sanchez told his team it had two options entering its first road game of the season.

Fight or fold.

The Rebels showed some fight, but three turnovers and undisciplined penalties led to a 30-14 loss to Northwestern on Saturday at Ryan Field.

Charles Williams rushed for 144 yards and scored on runs of 65 and 37 yards, but the Rebels (1-2) were shut out in the second half after leading in the second quarter.

“That was a very winnable football game,” Sanchez said. “There’s been a bunch of football games we’ve played like this over the years where we had to play a little bit above our heads. Today, that wasn’t the issue — we did not have to play above our heads. We just had to go out, keep moving the chains, hold onto the football and we had a great chance to win that football game.”

Neither happened for UNLV, a 17½-point underdog.

Trailing 16-14 and driving to start the third quarter, Rebels quarterback Armani Rogers was intercepted. Northwestern responded with a 50-yard touchdown pass from Hunter Johnson to JJ Jefferson that gave the Wildcats a 23-14 lead with 5:58 remaining in the third quarter.

Even with the sudden shift in momentum, the Rebels still believed they had a chance to make a move.

But as was the case throughout the afternoon, UNLV never could answer. Rogers, who finished 16-for-26 passing for 120 yards, fumbled late in the third quarter. Then, after the Rebels reached the Northwestern 17-yard line, Rogers was sacked for a 3-yard loss and Daniel Gutierrez pushed a 38-yard field-goal attempt wide left.

The UNLV defense couldn’t get off the field after the missed field goal. After Rogers was sacked for the fifth time deep in UNLV territory, Northwestern’s Drake Anderson completed the scoring with a 7-yard touchdown run.

And just like that, a game that started with so much promise and saw the Rebels play with the Wildcats for much of the afternoon ended with a thud. And even though an offense that sputtered mightily in last week’s 43-17 home loss to Arkansas State was much improved, the Rebels departed feeling as if they missed a major opportunity.

“We’re really and truly disappointed,” linebacker Javin White said. “We had a really good game plan, and I feel like we executed it for a certain period of the game. We just didn’t finish off.”

While playing well at times, the Rebels’ defense struggled with penalties, including three critical personal fouls that extended Northwestern drives.

Williams did his best to keep UNLV in the game. His first touchdown tied the score after Northwestern took a 7-0 lead, and his second gave the Rebels their first lead, 14-10 early in the second quarter. He has rushed for more than 100 yards in all three games and has 455 yards with six touchdowns.

“We’re not a bad football team,” Sanchez said. “We’re a good football team, and we’ve got a ton of winnable games left on our schedule. I think we’re going to be in a lot of dogfights like this. It would have been really easy for us to come into a big venue like this, playing the defending champs of their division, and just come in here and lay an egg. But we didn’t.”

Rogers, who also rushed for 57 yards on 14 carries, agreed.

“I feel like we responded well today,” he said. “We beat ourselves a couple of times … but we competed the whole time, nobody folded, especially after the game we had last week.”

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