Horror films have nothing on Rebels’ latest loss

Steve Guiremand

Monday, Sept. 27, 1999 | 11:14 a.m.

It was Sunday night at the movies for UNLV's football team. And the film John Robinson's club watched was a heck of a lot scarier and more violent than "The Blair Witch Project" or "The Sixth Sense."

It was the film of UNLV's 52-14 thumping at the hands of Utah in its Mountain West Conference opener on Saturday night at Sam Boyd Stadium.

Talk about grotesque. Perhaps the only thing that would produce more screams would be watching UNLV's 1998 highlight film.

Poor tackling. Nonexistent run game. Quarterback Jason Vaughan doing a bad Kevin Crook impersonation.

"It was very painful," UNLV coach John Robinson admitted. "We've gotten off course. Falling behind early, we tried to throw the football and tried to do some things and we just didn't do them very well. We have not executed our run early and then tried to go too quickly to the passing game and really didn't do that very well, either."

Not executing the run game early may be the understatement of the year.

The Rebels, who looked at times a) dazed and b) intimidated and c) simply outclassed, had minus-18 yards on the ground on 11 attempts in the first half en route to just 63 yards rushing for the game. Meanwhile Vaughan, the model of efficiency in UNLV's opening two wins at North Texas and Baylor, once again underthrew open receivers and made poor throwing decisions. It didn't help Vaughan that the offensive line looked like a sieve.

So what's the solution?

"We need to get back on our practice field and kind of get our offense back to what we were doing early in terms of the physical nature of playing the game," Robinson said. "We can't ask the quarterback to do more than he can actually do at this time. ... We've just got to be mentally tougher."

Translation: Expect the Rebels, who have yet to score a point in the first quarter this year, to run a few more Student Body Rights and Lefts early at Nevada-Reno on Saturday in the annual battle for the Fremont Cannon.

Robinson was asked if he and his staff pointed out each mistake on the film or just let Saturday's dismal performance speak for itself.

"Oh, no, we try and point them out," Robinson said. "Coaches go over mistakes individually with their player and try and make them understand what is wrong."

Biggest disappointment about Saturday's lopsided loss?

"The thing I'm most disappointed about is that we haven't improved in the last few weeks," Robinson said. "I thought there was steady improvement in our team from day one. But I don't know if it is that we were trying so hard to get ready to play a team that maybe we thought was a little better or that we had to do things perfectly. We just stopped doing the fundamental things."

* CHEETANY STARS: One of the few bright spots to come out of the Utah debacle was that the Rebels seemed to solve their punting problem. Junior Ray Cheetany, who had been doing an excellent job as the team's kickoff man, was sensational in Saturday's loss, averaging 48.8 yards on eight punts, including a 60-yarder.

Cheetany also had punts of 58, 52, 51 and 50 yards in the contest.

"He did a great job," Robinson said. "He's not a technician at all. He's a guy who goes back there and says, 'Hey, I'll punt the damn thing.' He's been real good."

* INJURY UPDATES: Defensive lineman Saeed Abdul-Malik (concussion), wide receiver Len Ware (sore leg) and starting tackle John Greer (sore back) were among the players who sat out Sunday night's practice with injuries. All are expected to play Saturday.