Rebels exorcise second half demons in Tempe

By Ryan Greene

Sunday, Sept. 14, 2008 | 2:33 a.m.

TEMPE, Ariz. - The second half as a whole for the UNLV football team could serve as enough evidence to believe its 23-20 upset of No. 15 Arizona State was far from a fluke.

Especially when comparing it against the post-intermission showing the Rebels had just a week earlier in Salt Lake City. UNLV coach Mike Sanford essentially called last week's second half one, big correctable mistake, and the fact that UNLV executed the turnaround in one week is more than a promising sign.

"I hate to bring up the past, but last week we came out dead in the third quarter," senior running back Frank Summers said. "We fought and mentally and physically did not want that to happen again."

Summers was a big reason why it didn't.

A culprit of UNLV having trouble finding any offensive rhythm in the first half and a portion of the second was an inability to establish the run. On Summers' first seven carries of the game, he compiled only 8 yards.

On his final 15 carries of the game, Summers stacked up 95 hashmarks.

"The offensive line, I give all the credit to them," he said. "When there's nowhere to run, you can't run. When there is somewhere to run, I can do my part by getting yards after contact. I just made up my mind at halftime that I was gonna put my head down and get as many yards as possible."

The brunt of Summers' groundwork came on an 18-play drive that ate up more than half of the fourth quarter clock and resulted in a 20-yard Kyle Watson kick to make it 20-13, with ASU on top. On that drive, Summers totaled 63 yards on nine tries.

And on the other side of the ball, the UNLV defense didn't allow itself to get trampled right out of the gates in the third quarter like it did in the 42-21 loss to Utah.

After picking up 248 yards of total offense in the first half, the Sun Devils were held to 125 in the second, and only picked up seven first downs compared to the 13 it accumulated before the break.

The night-and-day comparison in halves for the defense, though, may best be conveyed when talking time of possession.

In the first, ASU controlled the ball for 17:01, compared to 12:59 for UNLV. Following intermission, however, Arizona State only held the ball for 10:27, while the Rebels did so for 19:33.

The final second-half demon that was exorcised from a week ago came in the form of the reserves picking up the slack for some banged-up starters.

On defense, the Rebels were without Starr Fuimaono (knee), and middle linebacker Ronnie Paulo (leg) was limited in his duties a bit. Last week, those two going down seemed to cause shell shock, as the twos and threes came into the game and couldn't hold things steady in allowing the Utes to string together 35 unanswered points.

Saturday was different. Among the bevy of backups to contribute, no one stood out more than true freshman Beau Orth, who just a year ago was playing at Bishop Gorman.

Orth had a tackle for loss in the first half, but then jumped a route over the middle late in the second quarter, picking off a Rudy Carpenter pass and setting the Rebel offense up inside the ASU 10-yard line. It led to the first of Phillip Payne's two touchdown grabs.

"Unbelievable that we have two freshmen that made huge plays, and they're both Las Vegas guys - both of them, true freshmen," Sanford said of Orth and Payne. "They were going to their prom last May, and both of them made tremendous plays tonight."

For Orth, it was his first real shot at legitimate playing time this season, and he wasn't going to let the moment slip away.

"It was an awesome opportunity that you can't pass up with this crowd, this atmosphere and the whole team believing in me," he said.

All in all, the Rebels may have put one of their most forgettable halves of football behind them.

In more ways than one.

"Last week we played two quarters at Utah and we just didn't put it all together," Sanford said. "They were a team that just kept fighting, kept going -- one of the things we felt we had to do was play four quarters.

"I am very proud of our football team. That's the biggest thing I want to say tonight."