Defense moving in right direction as UNLV football moves to 2-0

UNLV receiver Jaden Bradley is pictured inside of Allegiant Stadium during a Week 0 game against Idaho State. Photo Credit: UNLV Football

Just one official week into the college football season and UNLV football is already 2-0.

In the program’s first road test of the season, the Rebels downed the Sam Houston State Bearkats, 38-21, Friday, Aug. 29. Last season’s UNLV squad started the season 6-0 away from home.

“There’s so many positives for us to build on,” head coach Dan Mullen said. “If we can focus on just eliminating some of [the mistakes]. And we’ve got to do a better job coaching. I think we sputtered at times during that game and that frustrates me.”

Coming into play, the Rebels were 9.5-point favorites after beating the FCS’ Idaho State Bengals by seven points last week despite being at home.

Now with a 2-0 overall record, UNLV will head back home for a big-time Power 5 opportunity. The team will host UCLA from Allegiant Stadium Saturday, Sept. 6 with kickoff slated for 5 p.m.

“I think the biggest thing is protecting the football,” quarterback Anthony Colandrea said. “I can’t be sloppy with the football, ball handling and also throwing the football downfield in bad coverage. UCLA is a really good football team so we have to clean that up.”

After giving up 31 points to an FCS team last week, the Rebel defense had a much faster start to this week’s contest. Senior defensive back Aamaris Brown came away with a 52-yard pick-six in the second quarter to put his team up 17 points.

That marked the team’s fifth interception in the team’s first five-plus quarters of the season.

“I think we were much better obviously, defensively than we were last week,” Mullen said. “Even though we still kind of kept putting the defense in some bad situations and we have to be better at that.”

That was the back-to-back scoreless drives for the Bearkats after the team missed a field goal the next time out. That special teams miss came after three straight incompletions from the 15-yard line.

Brown would make his presence felt again in the third quarter by sacking the opposing quarterback on third down to set up a punt. The defense allowed 200 less yards than it did last week while holding Sam Houston State to 1-of-12 on third downs with an average of 4.7 yards per play.

“It’s awesome to have a really good defense,” Colandrea said. “[The offense] won against them for what – four weeks of fall camp and it was tough. Those guys were getting after our butts.”

There were a lot of other opportunities for more turnovers by the UNLV defense but the team couldn’t get out of its own way. Freshman Tre Fulton came up with a third quarter-interception but defensive pass interference wiped the takeaway off the board.

On its first five penalties of the game, the Rebels had racked up nearly 60 yards on flags. At one point of the second quarter the team’s offense faced a 1st and 23 after a holding call followed by an offensive pass interference penalty.

“On both sides of the ball, we’re really good,” Mullen said. “Some of our errors are just glaring errors. Two of their touchdowns were on 4th and 1, we have an offense kick hit our best hands receiver in the chest.”

While mistakes weren’t far and few, the UNLV defense didn’t really give up big plays until the fourth quarter. Sam Houston State broke out for a 53-yard rushing touchdown on a 4th and 1. Later in the game, the home team scored on a 59-yard tightrope aerial touchdown on another 4th and 1.

“Defensively, you saw them [keep] slamming the door,” Mullen said. “I thought we played great defense tonight and the offense kept putting us in some bad – special teams and offense put us in some bad situations late in the game.”

Things just weren’t easy down-the-stretch despite the win as the Bearkats came up with an onside kick with just over five minutes left in regulation, down 17 points. That drive would end in a turnover on downs.

For the first time this season, Colandrea made the start under center for UNLV after transferring this offseason from Virginia. It was a fast start for him as he went 5-for-5 on the team’s opening drive of the game.

Colandrea found senior receiver Jaden Bradley three times including on a 43-yard touchdown strike. Bradley ended the night with six catches for 125 yards on six targets.

“The biggest thing is just giving these guys a shot downfield,” Colandrea said. “If I overthrow it, we might as well just spike the ball or do something but I’ve just got to give him a shot and he’s going to go make a play downfield.”

Colandrea would start the game 6-for-6 before being temporarily pulled for backup Alex Orji. He would throw his first incompletion of the game upon re-entering the game.

It wouldn’t take long for him to settle back down as he found junior receiver DeAngelo Irvin Jr. for a three-yard touchdown pass. By halftime, Colandrea had gone 13-for-16 for 167 yards and two touchdowns on his way to 19-for-23 for the game with 249 yards, those same two touchdowns and an interception. He also did some work on the ground with 23 yards and a touchdown on six carries.

“I feel like it was solid,” Colandrea said. “A couple of bad reads but I feel like other than that we did a good job on the outside of just executing and making plays. The offensive line did a great job today of protecting – no sacks, that was huge.”

Junior running back Jai’Den Thomas scored a three-yard rushing touchdown in the third quarter for his fourth touchdown through the team’s first two games of the season. He had four touchdowns all of last season.

“We only ran 56 plays offensively,” Mullen said. “I mean, Anthony 19-for-23. That’s a great day with a bad interception. You look at us running the football, pretty good balance running the football.”