Latest defeat leaves Rebels on the ropes

Steve Guiremand

Monday, Nov. 1, 1999 | 9:42 a.m.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- As his stunned teammates slowly peeled off their sweat-soaked uniforms following a surprisingly lopsided 27-6 loss to New Mexico on Saturday night at University Stadium, UNLV quarterback Jason Vaughan pulled a Roberto Duran.

"No mas."

Actually, the badly beaten 6-4, 205-pound junior college transfer from Suwanee, Ga., bothered by dizziness and headaches from a concussion, at first waved off reporters by saying in a soft voice "I can't."

"I don't feel real good right now," said Vaughan, who completed just 11 of 25 passes for 100 yards. "I got a concussion last week against BYU. I took three or four hits tonight and it got bad. I felt real dizzy out there."

How bad? Besides the usual array of poor passes, Vaughan tripped over his own feet -- again -- on a scramble and fumbled away a center snap.

"It's a very tough loss, a very tough loss" Vaughan said of the defeat to the Lobos (3-4, 1-1), which dropped UNLV to 3-5 and 1-3 in Mountain West Conference play. "But we've got three more. We'll see what happens."

What happens is that Vaughan could possibly find himself on the bench watching the Rebels' next game on Nov. 13 at Air Force.

A seething UNLV coach John Robinson, frustrated by an offense that has just produced a grand total of six points in its last 10 quarters, hinted after the New Mexico loss that he could be making some changes to his offense.

"We can't continue to reshuffle the cards and deal them the same way," Robinson said. "We've got to try and make some adjustments."

Will he use this week's bye week to audition some players for the starting lineup?

"I don't know," Robinson said. "It's five minutes after the game. I don't have any plan yet."

Will he stick with Vaughan at quarterback?

"I don't think it's the right time for me to discuss that," Robinson said. "There are some changes we have to contemplate. Hell, we're not going anywhere offensively. We have to look and see if there is another combination of things we can do."

Robinson doesn't exactly have a lot of options if he does make a change at quarterback.

Sophomore Chris Hayward, who started two games last year and mopped up in the fourth quarter on Saturday night, revealed that he had been slowed the past month by a stress fracture in his foot.

"I just want to get healthy so I can play up to my capabilities," Hayward, who completed just 1-of-4 passes for 3 yards on Saturday night, said. "That's what I'm worried about. It's been bothering me since (Nevada-Reno), but it's feeling a lot better. I doubt I'll do anything this week but stay off of it."

What about Robinson's comments that changes could be made on offense?

"If I get my chance, great," Hayward said. "If not, I'm supporting (Vaughan). Either way."

Robinson's only other alternative at quarterback is to blow the redshirt year of one of his two freshmen, Matt Ray or Ryan Hansen, for the final three games of 1999, all of which the Rebels must win if they are to reach their goal of finishing the year with a winning record.

"It's real frustrating," Vaughan admitted. "We had (tailback) Jeremi (Rudolph) hurt. I felt like we had a chance to win if I had a real good game. I just couldn't function like I normally could. I couldn't think out there a lot of times."

Does Vaughan expect to start for the Rebels at Air Force?

"Yeah, I do," he said. "The time off will be good for us all to get healthy again."