Columnist Dean Juipe: Break gives Rebels chance to regroup

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2001 | 10:15 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

When last we left the UNLV football team it was 0-2 and arguably in the process of reeling toward a discouraging year.

The Rebels are still 0-2 and might still be reeling, but getting an extra week off (as an outgrowth of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington) could prove advantageous in the long run.

Instead of playing defending Mountain West champion Colorado State as was initially scheduled for their third game of the season, the Rebels are now headed to Arizona for a Saturday game against an opponent with inherently lofty expectations even while in a rebuilding mode.

Arizona -- once a stalwart Pac-10 program that sent six teams to bowl games in the 1990s -- is picked to finish 10th and last in the league this season by many observers.

The Wildcats are 2-0 this season after nonconference wins over San Diego State and Idaho, and they're ranked No. 28 in the weekly Sagarin poll that measures teams by a series of statistical formulas.

UNLV, No. 82 in that same poll, is a 2 1/2-point underdog in Las Vegas sports books.

While the Rebels had been favored over Colorado State, that game -- which has since been rescheduled for Oct. 20 at Sam Boyd Stadium -- was certainly looking tough at the time, given the Rebels' sloppy play the previous two weeks.

This is the first-ever UNLV vs. Arizona football game and it catches the Wildcats in the midst of adjusting to new coach John Mackovic. His predecessor, Dick Tomey, was driven to resign after his team crumbled in the second half of the 2000 season, losing its final five games to finish at 5-6 after a midseason spot in the Associated Press' top 20.

A year earlier, Arizona opened at No. 3 in the USA Today poll but finished 6-6.

Mackovic comes in with impeccable credentials and had to replace only 12 lettermen, yet the Wildcats lost some key offensive personnel and remain something of an unknown entity in spite of their earlier wins over nondescript opposition.

Whether they are better or not than the grim forecasts of a spot in the Pac-10 cellar remains to be seen.

Of course any number of items remain to be seen across the national sportscape as disjointed seasons in all affected sports resume. Especially at the collegiate level, intangibles such as morale, commitment and dedication are open to question for each and every team as of this date.

In UNLV's case, the additional week off is likely to prove more beneficial than not. I thought Colorado State at a plus 6 was a good play and believed the Rebels had nothing but downward momentum after untidy losses to Arkansas and Northwestern.

While the extra week off was tempered by the emotional strain of dealing with the terrorist attacks, the down time allows the Rebels to head to Tucson with an improved attitude and the feeling that they have something of a clean slate. They can -- and, perhaps, should -- feel as if the game at Arizona merely opens a "second season" and that their previous failures have been devalued if not entirely erased.

UNLV needs to disregard its winless record and come at the Wildcats loose yet self-assuredly. It needs to regroup before it's too late.