Rebels get the gameday experience … sort of … Saturday night at Sam Boyd

By Ryan Greene

Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008 | 2:14 a.m.

On one hand, you could look at it as one big tease.

After three weeks of training camp, UNLV's players are busting out that phrase you hear just about any college football player use at this point in August: 'We're ready to start hitting someone other than each other.'

Well, that didn't happen Saturday night at Sam Boyd Stadium, but the Rebels got just about every other aspect of the gameday experience out of the way so that next week, when Utah State rolls into town, there won't be any kind of shell shock.

Full pads were in play, but the ball was never thrown, and no bodies hit the ground in the Rebels' mock game.

"The purpose of this tonight was to basically go through the whole procedure of a gameday, so when we do this next Saturday night, they know exactly what to expect," UNLV coach Mike Sanford said. "We're gonna fine-tune a little bit some of the ghings we did in our warmup. One of the things we wanted to do was be perfect on our substitutions and all that, and we weren't. We need to speed up our process."

The Rebels were on the field at Sam Boyd Stadium - with maybe a couple-hundred folks in the seats to watch the dress rehearsal - for about an hour. Nothing too physically exerting, but the team went through the brunt of its play calls and game procedure.

"A lot of us, we're tired, it's been a long camp, and our bodies need a little rest," said junior linebacker Jason Beauchamp. "We're gonna get our legs back, but there's nothing like our first game.

"We can't wait until that day, Aug. 30."

Maybe most important was that this was the team's chance to continue preparing for the new 40-second clock which will start immediately following each play this season.

"We exposed oruselves to basically every personnel group, every situation we could encounter in a game I hope," Sanford said. "Either we did very well or we learned some things we can work on in practice."

Kicking competition continues

Sophomore Ben Jaekle closed out the mock game by drilling a field goal from the left hash mark at a decent distance, though Sanford, as he has stated for the past few weeks, said a decision on who will take field goal duties this season has yet to be made.

Jaekle will be taking care of kickoffs for the Rebels, but Sanford said the possibility still remains that both Jaekle and junior Kyle Watson could be used to kick three-pointers come next Saturday.

"It's going to depend on the kick I think," he said. "But we're not gonna say that yet."

No word yet on Pointer

Sophomore corner Quinton Pointer, still recovering from a dislocated elbow suffered during camp's first week, is still a possibility for the Utah State game.

Redshirt freshman Will Chandler was on the field with the first-team defense in his place as the No. 2 corner. Senior Geoff Howard, impressive throughout camp, is the solidified No. 1 should Pointer not be ready to go next weekend.

"We're gonna determine that probably Wednesday," Sanford said of Pointer's availability. "I don't know anything about it. He's got the brace on his elbow. There's a good chance he could play, but I don't know for sure what's gonna happen."

Next up

The Rebs will practice again Sunday night leading up to the first day of classes at UNLV on Monday.