24-0 beating at hands of Iowa State helps reality return to Rebels’ squad

Steve Guiremand

Monday, Sept. 20, 1999 | 10:52 a.m.

To hear UNLV's players tell it, maybe Iowa State was doing them a favor when it handed them a 24-0 blanking in their home opener on Saturday night at Sam Boyd Stadium.

Believe it or not, the Rebels, who opened the season with a 16-game losing streak and a 26-game road losing streak, may have been getting a little too big for their britches after back-to-back wins over North Texas and Baylor.

Really.

"We needed a punch in the mouth," wide receiver Nate Turner said. "We needed a wake-up call. We needed a loss.

"I take (Saturday's loss) as a wake-up call," Turner continued. "We needed to come down from our high horse. I think we lost our focus a little in the mix of all this talk of 'The New Rebels', being 2-0 and playing our first home game in a new stadium. We got sidetracked a lot."

"Without a doubt we needed this," fifth-year senior wide receiver Len Ware said. "We were walking around with our nose stuck up in the air."

UNLV coach John Robinson wouldn't go as far as to say the loss was good for his squad. But he hoped his young team at least learned that it must play a lot tougher down the road if it wants to make a legitimate run at a winning season.

"I think our team got a lesson," Robinson said. "For us to win we have to play with an absolute fanatical approach. I never had that feeling. Maybe it was the excitement of coming home and the game, the stadium and all of that. I told them all week that this is a fight and I don't know if we quite understood that."

The Rebels were dominated on both sides of the line of scrimmage by the Darren Davis-led Cyclones (3-0). Iowa State outrushed UNLV, 319-8, held a 19-7 edge in first downs and had a huge 38:46 to 21:14 margin in time of possession.

"They overwhelmed us pretty much from the start," Robinson admitted. "We were worried about the physical matchup and it turned out we had good cause to worry. They were able to control the football a huge amount of time. ... As the game wore on, they pretty much shut us down."

It was, to put it mildly, not the kind of dud that Robinson and company had hoped for in their 1999 home debuts.

"I'm most disappointed for our fans who came out," Robinson said. "But that's part of the process that we're going to go through to build an outstanding program. We're going to have some of these days.

"It's hard to become a winner," Robinson continued. "It takes time and it takes lessons. And we got one tonight. We're going to have to be a tougher, more physical group if we're going to get where we want to go."

* PUNTING CHANGE? Don't be surprised to see junior Ray Cheetany handling both kickoff and punting duties in Saturday night's Mountain West opener against Utah at Sam Boyd Stadium.

True freshman Ryan McDonald, who is averaging just 33.4 yards per punt in 13 attempts, continued to struggle in Saturday's loss to Iowa State, averaging just 32.0 yards on three punts. Enter Cheetany, who averaged 42.0 yards on three punts in the second half, including an impressive 51-yarder from the back of his own end zone in the fourth quarter.

Robinson refused to comment on his punting situation after the game.

* DUMB QUESTION DEPARTMENT: Robinson was asked after Saturday night's embarrassing lopsided loss if the defeat put a damper on his home opener.

"How much does this put a damper on our home opener?," Robinson said. "It dampens the hell out of it. It didn't go very well."