UNLV already preparing to break wishbone

Friday, Aug. 11, 2006 | 7:50 a.m.

UNLV opens its second season under head coach Mike Sanford in three weeks, and the preparations for its first opponent, Idaho State, are well under way.

At the same time - and throughout the season, for that matter - the Rebels will be preparing for an opponent they won't face until after Thanksgiving.

Although virtually every opponent on UNLV's schedule has some offensive or defensive quirk that figures to give the Rebels fits, it is Air Force's vexing triple-option offense that will keep Sanford and defensive coordinator Vic Shealy up late nights leading up to the Nov. 24 game at Sam Boyd Stadium.

In the Mountain West Conference "there are probably four or five kinds of strange, different deals that you have to prepare for during the course of the year," Sanford said.

But Air Force is the only team UNLV will face that runs a variation of the 'bone. The wishbone was developed at the University of Texas in 1968 and run to perfection by Oklahoma, which used the formation until the mid-1990s. Only a few schools, such as Air Force and Navy, still use versions of the wishbone, in part because the military academies routinely face bigger, stronger and faster opponents and must attack them with a combination of execution and discipline.

"Against that offense, if you haven't put in time and prepared for it beforehand," waiting until the week of the game to begin will be too late, Sanford added.

So Sanford and his coaches will have their defense practicing against the Falcons' offense during training camp, which began this week, and continuing throughout the season.

"We're going to spend some time in training camp on them," Sanford said of the Falcons, "and then we are going to spend about 10 to 15 minutes a week - on Mondays - on the wishbone. We won't let it interfere with our normal game-plan process on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but our defense is going to work against the wishbone every Monday.

"I don't mean to put too much emphasis on Air Force now because it's our last game, but we are thinking about that."

Last year Air Force quarterback Shaun Carney rushed for four touchdowns in a 42-7 rout of UNLV in Colorado Springs. Carney, who is back this season as a third-year starter, has brought more balance to head coach Fisher DeBerry's offense by passing for more than 2,700 yards the past two seasons.

The Falcons' offense not only poses problems for opposing defenses because of the chaos the three-back formation can create, it also has confounded Mountain West Conference officiating crews, Sanford said.

"One of the reasons the officials don't blow whistles in our conference is because of Air Force's offense," he said. "(Sometimes) they don't know who's got the ball, and they might blow the whistle too soon when a guy gets tackled and it looks like he's got the ball but he doesn't have the ball.

"You can imagine if the officials are having a hard time, the players are, too."