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Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
You have to hand it to little ol’ UNLV’s football team.
Somehow the squad that wins only a few games a year and gets lost in the autumn shuffle of sports events in Las Vegas was center stage Friday and there’s more optimism about the prospect of UNLV playing a postseason game than the big boys of Allegiant Stadium — the Raiders.
The football Rebels won three of their first four games entering Friday night’s game against New Mexico and were a hefty two-touchdown favorite over a Lobos team that got to know Las Vegas quite well in the pandemic year of 2020 when the Lobos moved in to Lake Las Vegas and played games at Sam Boyd Stadium because of COVID-19 protocols in their home state.
UNLV pitched a $31-a-ticket deal for tonight’s game and media who cover both the Rebels and Vegas Golden Knights might just have to give the NHL fellas over at T-Mobile Arena the cold shoulder tonight and cover the university footballers in town.
Everyone inside Allegiant Stadium saw the UNLV Rebels look disheveled in falling behind, 17-0, in the first half to a 2-2 New Mexico team.
But then the football Rebs showed a resolve not seen in a long time before a red-clad crowd that had an announced attendance of 21,605.
They shaved the 17-0 deficit to 17-9 at halftime thanks to three Daniel Gutierrez field goals, including successful lengthy boots of 50 and 47 yards. Las Vegas obviously has the best tandem of Daniel place-kickers in the USA with Gutierrez of UNLV and Carlson of the Raiders.
UNLV’s comeback continued thanks to quarterback Doug Brumfield, a six-foot-five lefthander who just might be the Rebs’ best QB since the days of a lanky quarterback by the name of Randall Cunningham.
Brumfield scored on a run and then added a two-point toss to receiver Ricky White, who made a spectacular catch for the conversion in the corner of the end zone.
And like that, Brumfield had willed UNLV from a 17-0 hole to a 17-17 tie after three quarters.
The Rebs then followed the A-Train — Aidan Robbins — into the end zone and UNLV surged ahead with a 24-17 lead early in the fourth quarter.
New Mexico responded with a field goal and the Rebs were nursing a 24-20 lead in the final quarter.
Las Vegas was so obsessed with its pursuit of being a major league city that it’s amusing to see the market catching Rebels fever in the face of a winless Raiders team and a Golden Knights squad searching for an identity.
Don’t get me wrong — Raiders owner Mark Davis is raking in impressive revenue numbers thanks to ticket revenues of 60,000 strong at the domed stadium, while VGK owner Bill Foley still announces attendance of 17,000 for what are glorified exhibition scrimmages. The Knights lost to San Jose, 7-3, Friday evening in their third of four preseason home games at T-Mobile Arena.
Brumfield is drawing much more national kudos for his play than Raiders QB Derek Carr, who was accused by an ESPN broadcaster this week of not throwing to his top receiver, Davante Adams, enough in a two-point loss to Tennessee in Nashville last weekend.
After home wins over Idaho State and North Texas, UNLV got the juices of Las Vegas sports fans flowing with a 10-point win on the road against the Mountain West’s defending champs, Utah State, last Saturday.
The WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces sold out their venue thanks to selling tickets for 10 bucks and LVSportsBiz.com wonders why UNLV doesn’t try the same to fill seats in the upper bowl, which is normally closed for Rebels football games.
LVSportsBiz.com was told that 2,000 UNLV students came to the game — a number that doesn’t sound large compared to the Alabama or Oklahoma student bases but it’s a big step up for UNLV.
They celebrated a UNLV win when Rebs cornerback Cameron Oliver sealed the victory with a pick-6 and UNLV had a 31-20 lead with 28 seconds to go.
That was your final at 11:23 PM Vegas time: UNLV 31 New Mexico 20.
How about the Rebels, baby? I’m still fired up! That’s such a huge deal for our group, it’s just a character building win and that’s the bottom line. It was ugly and there were a lot of things against us early on, and to rally like that, to play like that in the second half, to play complimentary football in a situation like that, I mean our crowd and our stadium … we can feel that. We handled adversity (and) this is a huge step forward in resilience. — UNLV head coach Marcus Arroyo
It was a game that UNLV would have found a way to lose in 2021 when the Rebs won a mere two games. In 2022, UNLV has flipped the script and now the Rebels are winning these games.
The Rebels improved to 4-1, including 2-0 in Mountain West Conference play, and travel to San Jose State for a 7:30 PM game on Oct. 7.