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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — UNLV’s football team had just won a crazy 51-48 game over the Air Force military academy and the Rebels’ giddy coach, Dan Mullin, took a seat behind a post-game mic in the Allegiant Stadium interview room late Saturday afternoon.
Mullin coached brand-name college football programs like Mississippi State and Florida of the powerful SEC, but it’s hard to imagine the ball coach sporting a more joyful smile than the one he showed after his UNLV squad won a wild one that featured a heart-thumping 11 lead changes.
UNLV’s football team is like Las Vegas — lots of new folks with dreams and a gambling streak trying to figure out how to realize success in this rapidly-growing market. More than 50 new football players, including many from big-name football colleges, came to the UNLV campus to play under Mullin who was chit-chatting about college football games as an ESPN TV studio analyst a mere year ago.
Mullin, who succeeded gritty Barry Odom as UNLV’s football coach (Odom parlayed his two years of success at UNLV into a lucrative head coaching job at Purdue), has won his first six games at UNLV. He urged locals to attend Rebels football games at the NFL stadium managed by the Raiders. UNLV announced attendance at 32,932 for today’s game.
With the NHL Vegas Golden Knights and WNBA Las Vegas Aces winning league championships and the Raiders’ stadium hosting a Super Bowl, many new residents in this Las Vegas market might not realize that the Vegas sports industry hit the bigtime decades ago with megawatt boxing matches and the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels basketball team.
The UNLV football team endured years of mediocrity, but now UNLV is winning on the gridiron and the Raiders that built a swanky stadium with the help of public dollars ($750 million) are losing. The one-win Raiders play the Tennessee Titans at Allegiant Stadium Sunday.
The Rebels have pulled out some unbelievable comeback wins this season, but nothing matched the back-and-forth theater after today’s 12:32 PM kickoff.
UNLV is now 6-0 on the season for the first time since 1974. UNLV is off to Boise, Idaho to play Mountain West power Boise State next Saturday.
PSA