Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Rebels must buck history against BYU

In his weekly football press release, UNLV associate sports information director Mark Wallington devotes about half a page to the number of negative streaks the Rebels have put to rest since John Robinson took over in 1999.

Wallington lists just 10 of the most major ones under the headline, "No Streaking" including the school's 16-game overall losing streak, a 22-game road losing streak, a five-game losing streak to in-state rival Nevada-Reno and a 11-game losing streak against ranked teams.

But one streak Robinson and company haven't been able to break yet is the school's four-game home losing streak to BYU.

The Rebels (4-3, 0-2) will try to snap that one again on Saturday afternoon at Sam Boyd Stadium against a Cougars squad that has lost four its past five games and is just 3-5 overall this year.

UNLV defeated the Cougars, 24-3, last year in Provo for only its second win in 10 tries against BYU. But the Rebels have never defeated the Cougars in Las Vegas.

"We almost broke it two years ago," junior linebacker Adam Seward said. "That was a tough loss. I was on the field for the final play and I just remember their fans chanting, 'B-Y-U! B-Y-U!' It was tough."

UNLV held a late 31-28 lead in that one and appeared to have the game in hand. But Cougars quarterback Brandon Doman hit Mike Rigell for a 42-yard gain on fourth-and-4to keep BYU's chances alive. On the very next play, Doman criss-crossed the field for a game-winning 21-yard touchdown run with just 1:12 remaining.

A crowd of more than 30,000 is expected for Saturday's game with many of them expected to wear the dark blue, white and tan colors of the Cougars.

"I'm excited," Seward, a junior linebacker from Bonanza High School who ranks fourth in the Mountain West Conference in tackles (9.3 per game), said. "BYU is a great team to play. They have such a lot of tradition in their program. But the main thing is we need to win this game. It's big for us. We can't fall to 0-3 in the conference by any means. And we want to put an end to that 0-4 record here."

The Rebels are going to have to get some big plays out of an inexperienced secondary for that to happen.

Starting cornerback Ruschard Dodd-Masters, who has been having an all-Mountain West Conference caliber of season so far, will sit out the first half of the game after getting ejected during the fourth quarter of Saturday's 28-10 loss to Utah for bumping an official. He'll be replaced by true freshman Ernest Gordon who has played mainly on special teams this year.

"I know they're going to pick on me because I'm the young guy," said Gordon, a 6-foot, 165-pound graduate of Hiram Johnson High School in Sacramento, Calif. "But I can play this position. I feel comfortable about what I'm going to do."

UNLV's other starting cornerback, Willie Tagoai, is expected to miss his fourth consecutive game with a knee injury. However, his replacement, senior Daniel Jones, has been a pleasant surprise in Tagoai's absence and seems to be improving steadily with each game.

Both the Rebels and Cougars will be leaning on their defenses coming into this one. Both teams have struggled offensively in recent weeks, especially passing the ball.

"Touchdowns aren't coming easy to either team right now," Robinson said.

UNLV ranks 95th in scoring offense with an average of 20.1 points per game while BYU is 102nd with a 17.9 average.

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