I am not going to make any predictions. But I do have a couple of observations and anecdotal comments. What struck me watching my first UNLV game last year under Odom and against Wyoming was the size of the offensive line with the addition of Jalen St. John and other transfers. Also, remember St. John out of high school was a 4 star and rated the no. 9th offensive guard in the country by Rivals. Boise's offensive line this pre-season was ranked 23rd. With Tiger Shanks and St. John, both Outland Trophy nominee's (Top 75 lineman in the country regardless of offense or defense) IMO UNLV offensive line is bigger and better than Boise, especially this year.

Before the Houston game, I checked their depth charts and their offensive line and defensive front and UNLV was just bigger. I felt there was a good chance that UNLV could control the line of scrimmage and they did. Anecdotally, one of the points raised by Cougar fans on their board during the game was the fact that UNLV's offensive line was HUGE! After their recent close loss against Oklahoma some of them also feel UNLV could be better than the Sooners.

My point is this. Unlike the past UNLV teams, Odom's Rebels matchup physically with every team on the schedule, including Kansas, Syracuse, Oregon State, Fresno and Boise. UNLV can go "mano a mano" up front with any team on the schedule and that wins football games. Also, I am very impressed with the defensive additions.

Masked_rebel said:

Liberty looks like they're going to escape vs Sanchez... blew a 9 point 4th quarter lead

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I was rooting for NMSU & Sanchez, but it seems that Sanchez hasn't been able to fix what plagued his UNLV teams...start fast, no/bad halftime adjustments, 3rd qtr stall, 4th qtr fade. But it's early still. Really hope he does well

Could be a trap game for Kansas. They play West Virginia after us.

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Bullmastiff 1 said:

I think there is a legit chance UNLV could break the top 25 at some point this seasin regardless KU result. 10-2 vs this schedule would do it.

That said do I think UNLV is one of the top 25 teams in the country? Probably not. Just like Liberty wasn't last year.

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Agree. Even at 10-2 I think we are top 40. Top 50 at 9-3. (All my opinion, of course).

Still, heading in the right direction. Glad that we received some buzz this season. We never get positive national buzz, only negative.

Those are his best offers…

Holy f’n crap. Is Kevin a worse recruiter than Mahhhhvvv?

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j. spilotro said:

I was thinking 10 … the direction will be interesting.

Kinda has that at Air Force vibe to it for me. I broke my finger high fiving the wall because I didn’t want to hurt my kids ….

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10 total? If u mean better overall then I agree. I mean impact players

j. spilotro said:

It’s one of those things - you hope the players stay away from everything, scores, highlights, etc … and they attack the next game as if it’s their Super Bowl.

Impossible to do, I know the staff will try to push that.

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Cliche's being what they are..

One game at a time.

Where do you see Oregon only a 6 point favorite over OSU?
I, want to go to that Sports book.
Oregon, is -16.5 point favorites now.

Rebel1986 said:

That could then be followed up with a ranked Oregon State game if they beat Oregon in a game that they could very well win against a much weaker Oregon team than the rankings show.

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Yeah.

Damn I forgot what a brutal stretch this is coming up.

Bullmastiff 1 said:

Hyperbole makes me happy..

Adam Hill local media guy tweets out after KU lost to Illinois..

'This is disastrous for UNLV'

What? Disastrous? Really?

Losing to Utah Tech would be disastrous.

Sure you'd rather beat a ranked KU team than not

But hardly 'disastrous' to have two P4 road wins.

Sure not N. Illinois beating ND at home impressive but impressive nonetheless.

And if UNLV loses to Kansas the sky isn't falling if you can rebound against Fresno..

3-1 with a possibly ranked Syracuse team coming to town is a pretty good place to be.

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That could then be followed up with a ranked Oregon State game if they beat Oregon in a game that they could very well win against a much weaker Oregon team than the rankings show.

j. spilotro said:

I’m not complaining, I like what I see.

I guess overreaction is just par for the course these days. I think we are, in general, overreacting right now. And if Kansas beats us, we will overreact to the loss.

If we beat Kansas, I’m sure we are going to be talking about a NYD bowl game against Notre Dame, oops, Georgia.

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Hyperbole makes me happy..

Adam Hill local media guy tweets out after KU lost to Illinois..

'This is disastrous for UNLV'

What? Disastrous? Really?

Losing to Utah Tech would be disastrous.

Sure you'd rather beat a ranked KU team than not

But hardly 'disastrous' to have two P4 road wins.

Sure not N. Illinois beating ND at home impressive but impressive nonetheless.

And if UNLV loses to Kansas the sky isn't falling if you can rebound against Fresno..

3-1 with a possibly ranked Syracuse team coming to town is a pretty good place to be.

There are still people that want Hajj to start?

The Koolaid stuff starter after last week, but I really have to laugh at people that thought thumping UT was going to put us into the Top 25.. I dont think NIU beating ND should've put them there either, but voters gonna vote. I agree that there is still some stuff to get worked out on the field, its tough to gauge against an opponent that let you do whatever you wanted. Our schedule helps give optimism that it is a very likely possibility if you deliver on all results to end up in the CFP, that's what good scheduling does, but you also have to win those games and beating a bad FCS program into the ground is what you're expected to do, not a shout out to the voters.
I think this weeks game is going to be a lot different than last years for both teams. It wouldn't surprise me if its a 27-24 slug fest at times because I think KU is going to feed its backs and try and limit Daniels while he's still shaking off the rust of not playing or practicing for an entire year, combined with a new play caller and new system. So can we stop the run and limit the option pitches by Daniels to Neal and Hishaw will play a bigger role than can we cover the WRs an deep streaks like the bowl game. KU's defense is really going to struggle trying to contain the rushing ability of Sluka, which should help the passing game. He is going to need to focus on finding a WR other than White, who is going to get blanketed by Bryant all night. I know the game plan was probably get it to White vs UTech but I wouldve like to see him try and really spread it around while in the game and get familiar with the other receivers.

I've been beating the drum that this is a run first oriented team.

They may get away from that some vs KU who's defensive front is pretty solid. Held a pretty physical Illinois run game to less than 4 yards per carry.

Think the Rebs may attack KU downfield early to loosen up that front seven.

Rebel_Luv said:

Not bad. IF we can keep it competitive. i still think we are a player or 2 on the offense and defensive side of the ball from being a true TOP 25.

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I think there is a legit chance UNLV could break the top 25 at some point this seasin regardless KU result. 10-2 vs this schedule would do it.

That said do I think UNLV is one of the top 25 teams in the country? Probably not. Just like Liberty wasn't last year.

dcut03 said:

I agree that those schools were left out for a reason, but i wouldn't say that it is obvious that UNLV would be a better option than the Pac 2 for Big 12 expansion.
Such a great big market with a ton of buzz going into the season following our best season in decades.
Still less than 200k watching our season opener against a Big 12 opponent. That happens to be against a team in a top 5 market. Sure A&M was on, but that shouldn't matter, right? How many of those fans watching were actually in Vegas or UNLV fans.
Then to follow up with 25k for our home opener after a big win. Where 7250 were freebies given to students with maybe 20k butts in actual seats.
It is more than our market, it is market saturation. Which is poor. OSU and WAZZU are small markets, but still big state schools with a history of fan support. I haven't seen the numbers but I would guess they have had more eyes on their games than ours, in a year where you expect their fans to bail.
Also for the right price, Vegas is open without UNLV. They already took away the LV bowl from our conference. The Big10 and SEC had a record setting opening game on our home field.

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The B12 isn't going to add anyone right now. Any money they give to new schools come from their media bucket of money. The other schools aren't going to take less just to give a new school an opportunity. Not OSU, WSU, SDSU, nor UNLV unless the media companies see some value there. I'm not seeing it myself. As much as I would love to go to P4 we need to fix our basketball program to offer them something they might want.

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Masked_rebel said:

Las Vegas is a destination and much more desirable market than Corvallis or Pullman. The only reason those 2 programs aren't G5s anyways was regional affiliation with Oregon and UW and that's gone. And realistically if the Big 12 had wanted them, they'd already be there and that would be that.. there are ways to avoid payouts and even then, what's 1 years TV revenue as a payout when you get 10 more of those plus added on the backend...

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I agree that those schools were left out for a reason, but i wouldn't say that it is obvious that UNLV would be a better option than the Pac 2 for Big 12 expansion.
Such a great big market with a ton of buzz going into the season following our best season in decades.
Still less than 200k watching our season opener against a Big 12 opponent. That happens to be against a team in a top 5 market. Sure A&M was on, but that shouldn't matter, right? How many of those fans watching were actually in Vegas or UNLV fans.
Then to follow up with 25k for our home opener after a big win. Where 7250 were freebies given to students with maybe 20k butts in actual seats.
It is more than our market, it is market saturation. Which is poor. OSU and WAZZU are small markets, but still big state schools with a history of fan support. I haven't seen the numbers but I would guess they have had more eyes on their games than ours, in a year where you expect their fans to bail.
Also for the right price, Vegas is open without UNLV. They already took away the LV bowl from our conference. The Big10 and SEC had a record setting opening game on our home field.

dcut03 said:

I agree that we will run a lot more this year.

But I also don't think that we should be used to sub 200 yard passing games.

Odom likes to play to his team's strengths. When you have White, Cain, DeJesus, Ballungay and then you have or stable of RBs and Sluka, throwing the ball is an arguable strength.

Sluka isn't a terrible passer. He needs to work on some things for sure.

But we just had 2 games where it was mandated to NOT throw the ball for an entire half.

Marion is a WR himself and his best offensive player is a WR. I think we see more of an air attack. Still a lot of running, more than last year. But I think the run/pass yardage splits get a good amount closer for sure.

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Rebel1986 said:

According to the coach he shut down all passing in the second half. According to the stats their was only one pass attempted in the second half by Cameron Friel for 30 yards. While they may have left the option open if needed for a pass, it appears that it was totally shut down. If UNLV had continue to pass in the second half the score would have most likely been around 100 with 800 yards of offense.

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Yeah there were two or three plays where I think they were going to let Hajj throw he dropped back, there was nothing there and then he took off.

Get him a pass in and shut it down. Drop backs don't register as pass attempts.

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Bullmastiff 1 said:

I wouldn't judge Hajj too much on this game. I don't think they called more than 3 or 4 pass plays for him, and even those I think were 'If first read isn't there tuck and run' type stuff. He rushed for 88 yards. There really wasn't any reason to put the ball up in the air.

I've never been one to criticize a team for running up the score, but there is a point in a game where you take the air out of the ball and just run base stuff. If they can't stop that it's on them.

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According to the coach he shut down all passing in the second half. According to the stats their was only one pass attempted in the second half by Cameron Friel for 30 yards. While they may have left the option open if needed for a pass, it appears that it was totally shut down. If UNLV had continue to pass in the second half the score would have most likely been around 100 with 800 yards of offense.