Rebels ready for shootout

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Sept. 19, 2003 | 10:26 a.m.

UNLV began the week still celebrating one of the biggest wins in school history, a 23-5 upset of 14th-ranked Wisconsin. But by the time the Rebels boarded their buses Thursday afternoon to head to the team hotel, they were focused on a much more bitter memory from the 2003 season.

Kansas.

"If anything, we learned something from that game," quarterback Kurt Nantkes said of a lackluster 46-24 loss to the Jayhawks following an impressive 28-18 season opening victory against Toledo. "We learned that we can't take any opponent lightly or go into any game knowing or thinking that we are going to win. We have to go out and play with the energy and stuff that it takes to win."

The Rebels (2-1) are well aware that they can't afford to have another letdown in tonight's game against Hawaii (1-1), a 61-32 loser at USC last weekend, if they want to be really taken seriously as a Mountain West Conference contender.

"That was just our wakeup call," cornerback Ruschard Dodd-Masters said. "We had a flat time. We had had a hard training camp and we came out hard in the first game for revenge. Then Kansas came out pretty fired up for us because they wanted their revenge for losing to us the year before. They had a little more juice than we did that day."

With the wounds of the Kansas loss still fresh, Nantkes said the Rebels were able to quickly put the Wisconsin victory behind them and focus on trying to defeat a veteran and explosive Hawaii squad that was picked to win the WAC championship in a media preseason poll.

"It was a good week of practice," Nantkes said. "We stayed on top of things. We refined our skills and we didn't let our (Wisconsin) victory get to our head. We just kept working toward playing well again this week which is what we needed to do."

Hawaii, with a Heisman Trophy candidate in junior quarterback Timmy Chang and a rarely seen Run-'N'-Shoot offense, presents a lot of problems for the Rebels, especially on defense where a rebuilt secondary struggled in the Kansas loss.

"We kind of put that behind us," Dodd-Masters said. "I think we prepared well this week and everybody got their assignments down. They kind of have a few tendencies and we kind of know what they like to do."

Despite the 61-point output by USC, Nantkes said he was impressed with the Hawaii defense.

"They're a tough team with a big, physical defense," he said. "We know that their offense can put up points. We just have to go out there and play our game."

The Rebels should get a boost tonight with the return of starting tailback Larry Croom, who practiced lightly on both Tuesday and Wednesday after sitting out the Wisconsin win with a strained thigh muscle. Croom isn't expected to start but trainer Kyle Wilson said he has been cleared to play.