Brickell emerges as big playmaker for Rebel ‘D’

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Oct. 14, 1999 | 10:55 a.m.

UNLV linebacker Tyler Brickell seems to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time.

Call it having a nose for the football.

The 6-4, 230-pound junior from Fullerton (Calif.) High School has played a key role in perhaps the two biggest defensive plays of the season this year for the Rebels.

It was Brickell who stripped the ball away from Baylor tailback Darrell Bush on the final play of the game. The ball then bounced to Rebel cornerback Kevin Thomas, who returned it 100 yards for the unlikely game-winning touchdown in a dramatic 27-24 victory.

Brickell came up huge again in UNLV's 38-35 upset of 25-point favorite Wyoming last Saturday in Laramie, intercepting a Matt Swanson pass in the flat with just 1:16 left to seal the Rebels' first conference road win since 1994.

Not bad for someone who entered the year with just one career start and 50 tackles.

"What I think he's done this year is I think he's learned," UNLV coach John Robinson said. "He's become a more intelligent player. So much of playing football now and against some of these offenses is understanding and learning each week."

The Wyoming interception is a good case in point.

"In that situation a lot of players would be running around thinking, 'I've got to make a play' instead of just doing their assignment," Robinson said. "Tyler was patient and understanding his role and not panicking in that situation."

But it was his role in forcing the Baylor fumble that will probably go down as the biggest play in Brickell's college career.

"Sometimes my teammates will bring it up and the coaches are obviously thankful for it," the former first team all-Orange County choice said. "I was just happy to be able to make a play that helped us to win."

So which play did Brickell find to be more satisfying?

"Probably the Baylor one because it was so shocking and surprising," he said. "But the one this week was cool, too."

* RECRUITS TO VISIT: Even though the Rebels have a bye this week, John Robinson and company will be busy getting a start on their 2000 recruiting class.

Two of the top prospects from perennial junior college power City College of San Francisco, wide receiver James Wegener and linebacker Tyrone Tucker, will take official recruiting visits to UNLV this weekend.

Wegener originally signed with Baylor out of The Woodlands High School in Houston while the 6-3, 240-pound Tucker prepped at South Miami (Fla.) High School.

Junior college players can't sign a letter of intent until mid-December.

A number of UNLV coaches will also scatter across the West Coast to attend high school games.

Of course, it can be argued UNLV's two biggest newcomers for the 2000 campaign are already on campus redshirting. They would be USC quarterback transfer Jason Thomas, who has sparkled in recent workouts, and Washington State running back transfer Kevin Brown, a second team all-Pac-10 choice in 1998.

* BACK TO THE BASICS: UNLV is holding just three workouts this week as Robinson allows his squad to rest up for the second half of the season.

The focus this week will not be as much on next week's Homecoming game with BYU as on fundamentals.

"It's been our theme since the Utah game when we didn't play well," Robinson said. "We said we have got to go back and really work on skills and do them and do them and get better at them. Fundamental things like blocking and getting off blocks."

* HOT TICKET: Despite going head-to-head with the Mike Tyson-Orlin Norris fight as well as the World Series, tickets for next Saturday's UNLV-BYU game continue to sell at a brisk pace.

Terry Cottle, UNLV's associate athletic director in charge of sports marketing, said "about 26,000 tickets" have been sold and that he expects that number to increase considerably on Monday when BYU fans begin to focus on the game.