UNLV back in win column with first road win at Colorado State since 2002

UNLV quarterback Anthony Colandrea (#10) high-fives receiver Taeshaun Lyons during the team's conference road win over Colorado State. Photo Credit: UNLV Athletics

A stretch of three straight weeks for UNLV football without a win is over.

UNLV bounced back with a, 42-10, win over Colorado State Saturday, Nov. 8 from Canvas Stadium in a Week 11 matchup. It’s the program’s first win in Fort Collins against the Rams since 2002.

“They certainly [played complimentary football],” head coach Dan Mullen said. “We talked before the game, ‘Look at each other, believe in each other, play for each other and play together as a team.”

The Rebels entered the weekend sixth in the Mountain West’s standings after having played in the Mountain West Championship last season. Moreover, the team entered Saturday as one of five Mountain West teams with two conference losses as 10 teams sported two conference losses or more.

UNLV is now 7-2 overall this season with back-to-back home games looming. It will play Utah State Saturday, Nov. 15 from Allegiant Stadium. Kickoff is set for 4 p.m.

“I thought we had a great week of practice,” Mullen said. “It’s just like games. We come out and we play great sometimes and then we play terrible sometimes, can we find a way to be great everyday?”

Colorado State blitzed early and often as expected against Mullen’s offense. Junior quarterback Anthony Colandrea didn’t have a grip on things early as he completed just one pass out of his first four attempts and even threw a first quarter interception off a pass breakup.

“They blitz so much that they cause you some issues,” Mullen said. “And it gets frustrating even in practice it gets frustrating. I’ll be honest with you when you’re ‘high-risk, high-reward’ like they are, we told the guys just believe and when they give us the shots, they’re going to hit.”

The Rebels began to find a flow through the running game. Junior running back Jai’Den Thomas broke free on a 57-yard touchdown run in the second quarter for the team’s first score of the night.

On the next drive, Thomas ripped off another long run, this time for 59 yards on his way to 131 yards and a touchdown on seven carries.

Junior running back Jaylon Glover scored his first touchdown as a member of the UNLV roster as one of the many new additions to join the program this offseason.

As a team, the Rebels rushed for 320 total yards.

Even Colandrea got in on the rushing action with a five-yard touchdown scamper in the second quarter to give UNLV its first lead of the game at 14-10.

In the second half, Colandrea balanced on the tight rope as he danced down the sidelines for a 71-yard rushing touchdown that would be called back due to holding.

Colandrea wouldn’t be denied as he found paydirt later on the drive with he legs again from two yards out

Once the foundation had been built through the running game, Mullen and Colandrea began to find shots to take through the air.

Colandrea flung one deep to redshirt senior receiver Troy Omeire for a 68-yard touchdown pitch-and-catch on the second play of the team’s second drive of the third quarter. That marked the team’s third play of at least 50 yards.

In the fourth quarter, Colandrea would strike again on a 39-yard touchdown pass to redshirt sophomore Taeshaun Lyons. The former Virginia signal-caller would pass for 251 yards, four total touchdowns and an interception while going 15-for-22 through the air.

“It’s a lot of fun when you’re on offense and you have a guy that can do the special things he does and make the special plays he makes, it boosts everybody up,” Mullen said. “I thought for as much as the different looks and the confusing looks that they give you – they do that to try and really mess with the quarterback.

“You’ve got to be disciplined. And you’ve got to understand what’s going on so for Anthony to come in and manage the game the way he did tonight was pretty impressive.”

Later in the contest, Colandrea was pulled as longtime Rebel quarterback Cam Friel logged some fourth quarter minutes. With the game fully in hand, third-string quarterback Gael Ochoa even took a snap as part of the victory.

“It was really good to see us come out and execute on offense and defense at an extremely high level tonight,” Mullen said. “The confidence of our guys after those two games, I think they had high expectations the last couple of games coming off the two losses.”

Colorado State had everything clicking on its first drive of the night, even shaking off a 4th and 3 situation for its lone touchdown in the loss.

UNLV’s defense allowed a third down conversion the first time it faced one, which came on that scoring drive. From there, the team would force the Rams into 12 straight misfires on third down.

“I know the stat line is we were great on third down in this game,” Mullen said. “And we were, we covered people and got after the quarterback. But it was putting them in third and longer situations certainly helped.”

Despite falling behind 10-7 in the first half, the defense and special teams did their best work in the second 30-minute session. The special teams unit would force a miss on a 47-yard field goal in the third quarter to preserve an 11-point lead.

Now playing with the lead, the Rebels defense was able to pin its ears back which resulted in back-to-back sacks to start a third quarter drive. To that point, the team had tallied just one sack before eventually finishing with three total.

“After that first drive, we made a couple of adjustments,” Mullen said. “Very easily could’ve gotten frustrated at that point. They don’t. They buckled down and our defense really started making plays.”

The pressure forced Colorado State to take some deep shots down field. Senior defensive back Laterance Welch was the recipient of one of those deep shots as he hauled in his fourth interception of the year and the sixth of his career.