Sunia’s return lights a fire under Rebels

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2001 | 9:21 a.m.

After James Sunia underwent major knee reconstruction surgery for the second time in five months last spring, the question was not when but if the hard-hitting senior middle linebacker would ever play football at UNLV again.

Sunia tore both the anterior cruciate and medial collaterial ligaments in his right knee in last year's 38-6 Fremont Cannon win over Nevada-Reno. He was doing a nice job of rehabbing from the surgery when five months later he tore the same ligaments during a moving accident.

Normally it takes about nine months to come back from such an injury. But on Saturday night at Tucson, just a little over six months after his second surgery, the 5-foot-11, 245-pound Sunia was one of the few bright spots in UNLV's 38-21 loss to Arizona.

Although he was only supposed to take part in about 15 plays in his first action of the year, Sunia ended up playing 36 plays and garnering four tackles. He needs just 31 more tackles over the final eight games of the season to break Randy Black's school career tackle mark of 294.

"It felt great to be back," Sunia said. "My knee did even better than I thought it would. I was out there a lot more plays than I had expected."

Although sophomore Ryan Claridge, who finished with a team-high seven tackles at Arizona, and impressive redshirt freshman Adam Seward are still listed 1-2 on this week's depth chart, look for Sunia to see plenty of action when the Rebels open Mountain West Conference play on Saturday afternoon against No. 20 BYU (3-0) at Sam Boyd Stadium.

"James has gone through a lot of pain just to get back to play again," UNLV coach John Robinson said.

"He gives us a very physical presence inside. When he got back on the practice field, everybody was like, 'Oooh, James is back.' "

Sunia said now that his knee has passed its first real test, he's more concerned about helping turn UNLV's 0-3 start around than his health.

"I feel like I accomplished something in coming back," Sunia said. "But getting W's is the main thing for me. I want to help the team win games."

Terry Cottle, UNLV's associate athletic director for sports marketing, said Tuesday night that 29,000 tickets had already been sold for the game.

So how did Robinson go about trying to loosen Thomas up following UNLV's 38-21 loss at Arizona?

"(Sunday) I was talking with Jason Thomas and I said, 'Odds don't look too good about you winning the Heisman Trophy,' " Robinson said. "That got him to smile a little."

Robinson said Thomas, who underwent foot and shoulder surgeries in the off-season, cannot blame injuries for his slow start (27-of-72, 467 yards, 3 TDs, 4 int.).

"Jason has no physical problems," Robinson said. "He has no excuses. He just isn't playing very well right now. ... He's not really a veteran player. That was only his 14th game as a starter and it was a stinker. ... He's still learning to be a great football player."

Robinson said senior cornerback Kevin Thomas also struggled badly at Arizona.

"He had a horrible night," Robinson said. "They threw at will against him."

The Rebels, who had 21 turnovers in 12 regular season games last year, already have turned the ball over 10 times in three games this season.

"And our opponents have gone on to score seven touchdowns off those turnovers," Robinson said. "Last year's team was almost exactly the opposite in that regard."