Rebels fall to Wyoming in season finale, 35-28

LARAMIE, Wyo. — UNLV safety Blake Richmond slipped, the perfect metaphor for how the Rebels’ football season ended Saturday.

The momentum from earlier in the season slipped away, as did the game against Wyoming.

It’s a season that began with promise, but ended with more questions than a game of Jeopardy after the Rebels lost 35-28 to Wyoming at War Memorial Stadium. The Cowboys won on Cameron Coffman’s 64-yard touchdown pass to wide-open tight end Jacob Hollister with 2:20 left.

It was the third loss in a row and sixth in seven games for UNLV (3-9, 2-6 Mountain West). And this defeat came against Wyoming team (2-10, 2-6) that was as down as any in the league, recording its only victories against teams from the Silver State.

“We’re really disappointed,” UNLV coach Tony Sanchez said. “I appreciate the guys and everyone on this team and their efforts. The bottom line is it didn’t seem like we were improving at the end. We did some good things at times, but we fell completely flat.”

UNLV’s defense, in particular, continued its late-season slide, giving up 538 yards, 290 on the ground. The Rebels allowed a 42.4-point average over their final five games, and were particularly susceptible against the run, yielding a 256.8-yard average over the last six games.

“Down the stretch, teams in our league really committed to running the football,” Sanchez said. “We didn’t do a great job of tackling. We have to become a stronger team. We have to become a much more physical football team.”

Wyoming’s Brian Hill rushed for 232 yards and a touchdown on 35 carries to set the school’s single-season rushing record with 1,631 yards. Coffman completed 14 of 24 passes for 248 yards and three TDs. Hollister caught five passes for 119 yards.

UNLV’s offense, which used a rotating quarterback system between Blake Decker and Kurt Palandech, put up some pretty good offensive numbers. In his final UNLV start, the senior Decker completed 18 of 33 passes for 270 yards and three touchdowns. Devonte Boyd caught six passes for 122 yards and a TD.

The Rebels totaled 456 yards, but they couldn’t make up for the early struggles.

“It hurt us,” Decker said. “We came out and we had (21) points in the second half, but you can’t just come score seven points on the first drive and get shut out for the rest of the half. That hurts our defense. We needed to play better the first half.”

It didn’t help that Nicolai Bornand missed field goals of 36 and 35 yards. He had missed three field goals all season.

“Those really came back to bite you,” Sanchez said.

Wyoming took advantage by scoring two touchdowns in the final 3:37 of the first half for a 14-7 lead. Hill broke three tackles on his way to a 72-yard scoring run, and Coffman completed a 35-yard TD pass to James Price with 6 seconds remaining.

“We were holding their offense down most of the first half,” UNLV safety Peni Vea said. Hill’s run “is where everything started going down.”

After the Cowboys stretched their lead to 14 with 6:37 left in the third quarter, UNLV twice rallied to tie the game. The last time occurred with 3:37 left in the game on Palandech’s 10-yard touchdown run.

UNLV needed a stop, and Wyoming soon faced third-and-3. The Cowboys went to play-action, and Richmond slipped trying to defend Hollister. It was an easy touchdown for Wyoming.

Now Sanchez and his staff are out to make sure the offseason is much more promising than the season itself. Next season begins today, and Sanchez leaves at 7:45 a.m. on a recruiting trip.

“We knew this (program) was going to be a tough turnaround. It’s probably one of the tougher turnarounds in the country," Sanchez said. "We have to continue to get better, and we have to really look at ourselves critically as a coaching staff and figure out how we can get better. We need to go out, and we need to recruit our tails off.

“I really believe we can be a really good football team here. We’re not that far away. At the end, we just don’t have the ability to go ahead and push through, and unfortunately, we proved that time and time again.”

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