Football Is Springing Into Action

Author: Matt Raftery

It’s a new season for UNLV Football and a sense of urgency and also breakthrough seems to be in the spring air as we head into the spring showcase Saturday afternoon. Last year the Rebels started the year fairly impressive and looked to be vying for a bowl bid.

That was until starting quarterback Armani Rodgers went down with injury and forced the Rebels to keep the offense afloat without his services. Max Gilliam came in as the backup quarterback and did the best he could. At times, it wasn’t pretty to watch and there were games that the Rebel’s offense looked like it forgot to come off of the team bus. The vibe when Rodgers went down with injury seemed to be “there goes our season.” It was certainly trending that way in the win-loss column too. UNLV’s momentum that they had built up at the beginning of the year had seemingly vanished. As soon as Rodgers came back for the last few games of the season, the Rebels started playing with a whole new kind of swagger and they were playing cleaner football. They ended the season with a bang and had upset wins over San Diego State and Reno. It could be easily argued that last year’s team was a 7 wins and 5 losses team that took themselves out of position to win games often times and made too many mental mistakes which caused them to finish with a record of 5 wins and 7 losses and miss a bowl game for yet another year.

This year has a whole new vibe to it. The players and coaches seemed more determined than ever going into the 2019 season to give UNLV a bowl appearance, something has not happened since 2013. Recruiting went pretty well for the Rebels this off season. UNLV made its presence known especially on the west coast. There were 3 players alone that came from Las Vegas high schools in this class along with 10 players from California. With a good, west coast recruiting class in place, it should make for some interesting battles going on in the spring showcase. Look for an interesting battle for the backup quarterback job between Max Gilliam and Kenyon Oblad who is a redshirt freshman. Another thing to look out for is an improved defense from front to back. This is a defense that seemed to make strides in the right direction last year and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this defense turn that corner and help the Rebels be a known force in the Mountain West at all levels of the defense from defensive line to the linebackers and even the secondary. Another key factor to watch is how the wide receiving core will respond after the loss of Brandon Presley for this upcoming season with a torn ACL. Presley led the team in receiving last year and was a big target for Rodgers to throw to especially deep down the field. One final area to keep your eye on is going to be the running backs. Can these running backs keep that same effectiveness that Lexington Thomas brought to the offense during his time with the team?

Make sure to get out to UNLV on Saturday afternoon and make sure to get there early for the big UNLV gear sale where anything and everything will be on sale at very reasonable prices. This is the perfect time to get all your Rebel gear for what should be an exciting and bowl eligible football season for the Rebels.