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A Friday night thriller to open October led UNLV football to its first loss of the season despite needing more than the 60 minutes of regulation to decide a winner.
After entering the week as a ranked team for the first time in program history, the No. 25 Rebels were beaten, 44-41, by the Syracuse Orange Friday, Oct. 4 from Allegiant Stadium. That knocks the team down to 4-1 on the season after going undefeated in September.
“It’s heartbreaking,” head coach Barry Odom said. “Hate it for our team that we couldn’t pull that one out. What an unbelievable environment tonight. It felt like a real game, like a real program.”
UNLV had a chance to earn a third win over Power conference schools this season. Now that the team has played back-to-back home games, it will return to the road as it heads back into Mountain West play.
Utah State is up next on the schedule with that meeting being slated for Friday, Oct.11. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m.
“We’ve got a tough team,” Odom said. “We’re close as a team but this will draw us closer, I have no doubt about that. We’ve got to learn from the good, we’ve got to learn from the bad then we have to go apply it. If not, then you haven’t learned from your lessons. We’ll be on a mission to get that done.”
Linebacker Jackson Woodard had a big night but couldn’t complete one final tackle from the goal line as Syracuse’s LeQuint Allen scored the game-winning touchdown in a back-and-forth contest.
In the fourth quarter, Woodard killed a drive in the red zone when he intercepted quarterback Kyle McCord at the six-yard line.
”I saw a lot of effort,” defensive back Jalen Catalon said. “You can say whatever about plays that were missed but he gave 100% just as everyone else did. You can go across the board, there were plays that everybody missed — I missed one too.”
Earlier in the drive, Woodard was flagged for a roughing the passer call setting up a new set of downs from the one-yard line. As a team, UNLV was flagged for nine penalties which cost the team 108 yards.
McCord put constant pressure on the Rebels secondary, throwing for 355 yards and three touchdowns on 40-of-63 passing along with an interception. He was responsible for leading an offense that converted 11-of-18 third down attempts.
“We couldn’t get off the field enough defensively on third downs,” Odom said. “But then we assisted with the number of penalties and that’s frustrating that we had that many not go our way.”
UNLV fell behind 14-0 after the first quarter and didn’t force Syracuse to punt for the first time until six minutes into the second quarter.
Following that flip of field, quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams hit NFL hopeful Ricky White III for 53 yards on the first play of the drive. It would end with a three-yard touchdown run by the former to tie the game at 14 apiece.
Williams went 21-for-25 while passing for 227 yards, three touchdowns and an interception. He added 53 yards and another touchdown on the ground via 12 touches.
The Rebels scored on three straight drives to take its first lead of the game at 21-14 in the second quarter. In addition, that was the second straight two-play drive.
In total, there were four lead changes in the game.
“We’re disappointed,” Odom said. “We had opportunities to win it and we came up short in a lot of areas.”
White had a monster day in multiple units beginning with his 10-reception, 135-yard night with a touchdown to his credit. He has now had back-to-back games with 10 catches.
His receiving touchdown came late in the fourth quarter to net the home team a 38-31 lead on a 10-play, 94-yard drive following Woodard’s interception.
It wasn’t only on offense that White’s presence was felt. In the third quarter, he blocked his second punt of the season while also scoring in scoop-and-score fashion to tie the game at 31. He has scored on two blocked punts this season.
“I think we’ve got the best special teams coordinator in all of football,” Odom said. “I think we’ve got one of the best players in all of college football — a number of them, Ricky is one of them.”
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