UNLV Rebels quarterback Jayden Maiava (1) scrambles away from Wyoming Cowboys cornerback Chauncey Carter (12) during the second half of a NCAA football game at Allegiant Stadium Friday, Nov. 10, 2023.
Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023 | 2 a.m.
When the $2 billion Allegiant Stadium opened in 2020, executives touted that it could one day serve as the center of the college football world in addition to being the home of the Las Vegas Raiders.
It just wasn’t supposed to happen this soon.
Those proclamations were made with the knowledge that the College Football Playoff was expanding to 12 teams in 2024 and would require more neutral-field venues going forward. No one expected Allegiant to be the focal point a year ahead of time during conference championship week, but that’s how it’s shaken out this season.
Las Vegas hosts 20% of the championship week schedule, with two out of 10 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) games landing here. The Pac-12 conference championship game between No. 3 Washington and No. 5 Oregon goes down at 5 p.m. on December 1 before the Mountain West takes over at noon on December 2 with UNLV hosting Boise State.
The Pac-12 was always slated to be here, but it took a monumental season from UNLV for it to earn the top regular-season standing in the league and get rewarded with home-field advantage in the Mountain West.
Here’s what to watch in Las Vegas’ biggest-ever college football weekend.
Shot at history
UNLV has been a member of the Mountain West since its inception 25 years ago, but never won a conference championship in football—or even come close.
This will be the Rebels’ first championship game appearance. UNLV has spent decades as one of the worst football programs in the nation but there was always a sense of potential if the right coach came around.
Barry Odom appears to be the right coach. In his first year at the helm, the 47-year-old former Missouri coach broke the program’s ignominious streak of nine straight seasons with a losing record.
UNLV’s 9-3 record technically marks the winningest FBS season in school history, as an 11-2 season in 1984 was vacated for using ineligible players.
Shot at a national championship
Allegiant Stadium is kind-of, sort-of making its debut as a playoff host with Oregon vs. Washington. The victor is highly likely, though not fully guaranteed, to earn a spot in the final four-team College Football Playoff.
Washington, one of four undefeated power-conference teams in the country, is surely in if it defeats Oregon for a second time this season. But it took a final-minute touchdown at home for the Huskies to knock off the Ducks 36-33 in October, and they’re a 9-point underdog in the Allegiant rematch.
No team in the country has played better than Oregon since the defeat, as it’s won six straight by an average of 26 points per game. There’s a scenario in which there are five deserving conference-champion teams alive for the playoff, and it would be highly controversial if the Ducks wound up the one left out.
Oregon would be favored over every team in the country except for Georgia and Michigan currently.
Bishop Gorman players celebrate after defeating Bishop Manogue of Reno in the high school football state championship game at Sam Boyd Stadium Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018. From left: tight end Jimmy Petrie (86), wide receiver Rome Odunze (4) and offensive lineman John Tournour (79).
Rome comes home
Washington receiver Rome Odunze caught the game-winning touchdown against Oregon in the first game between the Pac-12 rivals. He also led Washington to securing an undefeated regular season with a 23-yard rush on a fourth-down play against Washington State to set up a game-winning field goal in a 24-21 win November 25.
Odunze’s big-play ability, which has him as one of 10 semifinalists for the Biletnikoff Award given to the nation’s top receiver, shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone in Las Vegas. He pulled off similar heroics for a couple years at Bishop Gorman High, where he claimed Nevada Gatorade Player of the Year honors in his 2019 senior season.
Odunze isn’t the only local on the Huskies’ roster, as a pair of Liberty High greats in guard Troy Fautanu and receiver Germie Bernard are also key contributors.
Maiava never left
Former Liberty and Sierra Vista High quarterback Jayden Maiava drew offers to play at power-five programs, but opted to stay home at UNLV. The decision paid off quickly as Maiava worked his way up to No. 2 on the depth chart headed into his redshirt freshman season this year.
That put him in position to take over when incumbent starter Doug Brumfield went down with an injury early in the season, and Maiava played so well directing the Scarlet and Gray’s Go-Go offense that he seized the permanent job.
Odom has prioritized building his program around local players, so it’s only appropriate one has emerged as the face of the team at football’s most important position.
Heisman eliminator
Votes for college football’s most prestigious award, the Heisman Trophy, are due December 4. The Pac-12 championship will have major influence, as two of the three players considered to still have a real shot at the honor square off in Oregon quarterback Bo Nix and Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr.
Penix spent several weeks as the favorite after beating Nix and the Ducks the first time around, but has since slowed down statistically. Nix is now the odds-on favorite, barely holding off prolific LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels, according to the betting market.
Daniels may edge both of them, but he won’t have a chance to make a final impression during conference championship week after LSU went a relatively mediocre 9-3 this season. Penix and Nix have the valuable opportunity to use Allegiant Stadium as the venue of their “Heisman moment.”
Shorter-term turnaround
Unlike UNLV, no one would have been shocked to see Boise State in the conference championship game at the beginning of the season. In fact, the Broncos were a near-unanimous choice to win the Mountain West.
But plenty were surprised that Boise State would make it now, given a tumultuous season that saw it sitting at 4-5 in mid-November and led to the firing of coach Andy Avalos a week later. Boise State has since bounced back to win three straight, the last two under interim coach Spencer Danielson.
The Broncos needed outside help too, taking advantage of a chaotic Mountain West race to edge San Jose State via computer-ranking tiebreaker for the final spot in the championship game.
Boise State comes in as a 2.5-point favorite over UNLV with a seemingly more talented roster, but for most of the year, it hasn’t looked like the better team.
This story originally appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.
