UNLV’s Charles Williams, Lexington Thomas combine for 244 yards rushing

UNLV entered Saturday’s season-opening 43-40 loss to Howard at Sam Boyd Stadium figuring to rely heavily on its running game as the Rebels break in a redshirt freshman quarterback. 

And that’s exactly what they did.

Charles Williams and Lexington Thomas combined to rush 33 times for 244 yards, while quarterback Armani Rogers passed just 19 times. Rogers completed 11 of those attempts for 220 yards.

Thomas rushed 21 times for 151 yards and two touchdowns, and Williams ran 12 times for 93 yards and one TD.

Williams started against the Bison, but which player takes the first snap each week is almost irrelevant. Both are expected to get plenty of carries throughout the season, though Williams suffered a leg injury against Howard and was limited. Coach Tony Sanchez didn’t have an immediate update on Williams’ injury.

Sanchez, though, had made it clear during the week the Rebels would rely mostly on their running game, in part because of having effective backs also to ease the transition for Rogers, a redshirt freshman making his first start.

“That’s who we are,” Sanchez said after the game. “We were the No. 15 rush offense in the country last year. We’re going to run the football, and we ran the football well.

“The bottom line is we’ve got to put points on the board when we get down to the red zone. You look at a night like this where you end up losing by three, and we missed two field goals we probably should’ve made. We shouldn’t have even been kicking those field goals. They probably should’ve been touchdowns. This is a game we gave away.”

Kicker Pantels gets chance to show his leg in first half 

The Rebels racked up 313 yards in the first half against the Bison but reached the end zone just once. That despite beginning their first three drives on Howard’s side of the field.

It meant plenty of opportunities for kicker Evan Pantels. He made 4 of 5 field goals in the half; his only miss was a 42-yarder to the left. Pantels had just one try in the second half and missed the 48-yarder to the right.

In just one half, Pantels tied UNLV’s single-game record for most field goals in a game. It had been done six previous times. The most recent was by Nolan Kohorst, who made all four tries in a 2013 game against Hawaii.

To redshirt or not to redshirt

It appeared that UNLV freshman running back Tariq Hollandsworth would redshirt, but he fielded and muffed a kickoff in the fourth quarter. That miscue led to the Bison taking a 36-33 lead.

“I’m not going to put it on him,” Sanchez said. “We need to talk about that (Sunday), why he was in that situation. He wasn’t in there earlier in the game, so obviously at the end of the game that does fall on me, so I’ve got to find out what was going on in that situation. That was a poor, poor decision to have him come in at that point.”

Rebels’ HBCU opponent for next season undecided

The game against Howard was the second in a three-year contract — in conjunction with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority — to bring a historically black college and university to Las Vegas to play UNLV. The Rebels faced Jackson State a year ago.

UNLV’s HBCU opponent for next season hasn’t been announced, leaving it as the one open spot on the nonconference schedule. The Rebels host Texas-El Paso and visit Southern California and Arkansas State.

Their entire 2019 nonconference has been announced, with home games against Southern Utah and Arkansas State and trips to Northwestern and Vanderbilt.

More Rebels: Follow all of our UNLV coverage online at reviewjournal.com/Rebels and @RJRebels on Twitter.

Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.