UNLV football team moves up home opener one day

Steve Guiremand

Monday, Jan. 29, 2001 | 10:01 a.m.

UNLV football fans who are eager for the Rebels' 2001 home opener against Northwestern won't have to wait quite as long to watch Jason Thomas and company at Sam Boyd Stadium.

That's because the contest, originally scheduled for Saturday night, Sept. 8, has been moved up 24 hours to Friday, Sept. 7.

The reason? TV of course.

ESPN, which originally wanted to move the game to Thursday (Sept. 6), instead settled for the rare Friday night start. It will be the Rebels' first appearance on ESPN since their 52-24 Las Vegas Bowl win over Central Michigan on Dec. 15, 1994.

UNLV coach John Robinson said his school refused to move its home opener to Thursday night because it would be only five days after the Rebels' Sept. 1 season-opener at Arkansas. Northwestern, meanwhile, will be making its 2001 debut at Las Vegas.

"If they would have scheduled the game on Thursday night, only one team would have shown up," Robinson said. "It would have been just too much to ask our team to play again just five days after opening the season on the road. Having just six days to get ready will be hard enough. Five days after flying all the way back from Arkansas would have been asking too much."

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