Palepoi won’t get red-carpet treatment during trip to Utah

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Nov. 2, 2000 | 10:24 a.m.

UNLV defensive end Anton Palepoi has had Saturday afternoon's game at Utah circled on his calendar for a long time.

"It's my homecoming," said the 6-4, 275-pound junior, who leads the Rebels with seven quarterback sacks. "I've got about 65 friends and family coming. This game means a lot to me because that's where I grew up and I know a lot of their players."

In fact, Palepoi, who attended Hunter High School in Salt Lake, came very close to becoming a Ute after earning JC All-American honors last fall at Dixie College in St. George, Utah.

He actually had given a verbal commitment to Utah, but changed his mind after taking a recruiting trip to UNLV. He didn't inform the Ute coaches of his change of plans until the summer.

"They were real disappointed," Palepoi said. "I had committed there. I actually had a pretty good relationship with Coach (Ron) McBride and (defensive end coach) Steve Kaufusi. But then I chose to come here and they weren't too happy with that decision.

"They didn't really scream or curse at me or anything," Palepoi continued. "I didn't really talk to them a whole lot after that. It was just something that happened quick."

But Palepoi believes there will still be some lingering hard feelings when he takes the field at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Saturday.

"The welcome probably won't be very nice," he said. "I think they're looking forward to this game as much as I am. They want to get at me and I want to get at them, too."

Palepoi said the only reason he even took a recruiting trip to UNLV was "to have some fun.

"Then when I got here, I ended up liking what I saw. I had a good feeling about the coaches here. They kind of grew on me. And I was always a John Robinson fan from his Rams coaching days."

Now Robinson is a big Palepoi fan as well.

"He's a very active player who I think will be an all-star player both in the conference and nationally next year," Robinson said. "I'm really sold on the way he's come in here and done his job. He's also doing well in school, too."

"His foot is bothering him," Robinson said. "It's not as much the foot now, but because he's been walking funny on it, he has a strain in his arch."

Is Robinson concerned about the injury?

"Yeah, there's concern," he said. "But he'll go out (today) and practice and he might do some things on Friday. We just have to try and get that pain out of there."

The Rebel Football Foundation had just voted to help send the UNLV band to the game.

During his coaching stints at USC, Robinson always made a point to say how important it was to have the Trojan band on the road. His teams would frequently go over to the band area after a big road win and thank them for their support.