Friday, Aug. 31, 2001 | 10:19 a.m.
Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.
The price to be paid for taking part in such a lousy game on national TV will be significant.
Jason Thomas, for instance, can already forget about the Heisman Trophy. And his pro stock is in a free-fall tumble.
Aside from a 53-yard run on a busted play, the UNLV quarterback had a miserable night in the Rebels' season opener Thursday in Little Rock against the University of Arkansas.
It's of no consolation that his teammates, especially those on the offensive side of the ball and those charged with kicking it, were of little assistance as UNLV surrendered a late touchdown and suffered a hard-to-believe 14-10 loss.
Wow, does this one hurt.
In just one evening both Thomas' and the Rebels' bubbles have been burst. Suddenly, all that preseason optimism we've been exposed to -- and welcoming -- feels more like unwarranted hype.
It's one thing to lose a well-played game, but this was anything but. Arkansas looked terribly inept and as if it will be the worst team in the Southeastern Conference this season. It trotted out four quarterbacks, none of whom were even marginally impressive, and it went better than 40 minutes into the game before claiming a legitimate first down.
It's entirely possible that never in the history of Division-I football has a team played so poorly and won.
Think of what that says about UNLV.
Coach John Robinson will have a hard time putting a positive spin on this one, especially with Big Ten favorite Northwestern looming. His prized quarterback displayed nothing in the way of NFL ability and appeared to lack confidence -- to say nothing of good mechanics -- right from the get-go.
With a plethora of Heisman voters undoubtedly looking on, Thomas erased his name from consideration just a single week into the season. Likewise, the NFL scouts in attendance may have liked his athleticism yet they could hardly be expected to endorse Thomas as a quarterback with stellar potential.
While UNLV's defensive unit turned in a respectable game, short of allowing Arkansas to convert two key fourth-down plays in its final drive, between the Rebels' offensive flaws and their terrible kicking game this is a loss that may haunt the team and the program for some time to come.
Robinson has to take his lumps as well, if for no other reason than putting the deer-in-the-headlights Ryan McDonald into the game to punt with less than two minutes to play. The sophomore choked big time, fumbling the ball and allowing an Arkansas recovery that led to the winning touchdown with a mere 18 seconds to play.
Of course had kicker Dillon Pieffer not all but whiffed on two easy field-goal attempts, the Rebels would have won in spite of their other shortcomings.
Yet they didn't win and the consequences of playing a risky game to open the season can be many. A single loss isn't insurmountable, but this one is tough to digest.
For a program in need of public support, the bad game came at a bad time. Both a ballyhooed quarterback and a ballyhooed season may have been irreparably damaged.
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