It’s one of the things that makes UNLV’s football schedule so tricky in the beginning.
Following a Week 0 loss to Memphis, the Rebels play their next three games away from Allegiant Stadium.
It’s a tough stretch that begins with a Mountain West opener at Hawaii on Saturday. A rivalry game to which the winner goes the Island Showdown Trophy — a Vegas-style gold pineapple.
From there, UNLV travels to North Texas and Akron before returning home against Cal on Oct. 3.
“I’ve been to Hawaii twice in my life,” UNLV coach Dan Mullen said. “I love the island. Travel is the travel. We have a game on the East Coast (at Akron on Sept. 26) later this season. It’s not easy to win on the road. We’re going into a challenging environment, a rivalry game. It’s going to be a raucous crowd.
“The key for us is we got a game under our belts last week and have some veterans at key positions that have played in road games. It starts with the quarterback being comfortable and both our guys have played in raucous environments in their careers.”
He speaks of Jackson Arnold and Alex Orji, the former receiving all the snaps except two against Memphis.
Arnold certainly had the numbers that spoke of a solid outing, throwing for 291 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 54 more and a score.
“I think he played really well, managed us really well throughout the game,” Mullen said. “There’s a couple of things you’ll always hear me say about a quarterback and decision making that could have been better. A couple reads maybe that could have been quicker.
“The Memphis defense is very different from ours schematically and Jackson got a couple reps against that look in practice. If it was like 300 (reps), he might have made quicker reads. But, overall, I thought he played really well from start to finish.”
Is there a chance Orji plays more against Hawaii?
“We’re putting the gameplan in right now but if he does, I love Alex out there,” Mullen said. “The one thing is there’s a lot of confidence from the coaches and team in Alex. But I don’t know where the gameplan is right now.”
Boyd update
Starting center Austin Boyd went down with what appeared to be an injured ankle in the fourth quarter against Memphis. From there, the front struggled protecting Arnold.
The Tigers had four sacks after Boyd left the game. UNLV totaled minus-14 yards on 12 plays with him on the sidelines.
“When you lose that kind of player, a leader on the offensive line … He had an MRI and I’m still waiting on the results of that,” Mullen said. “But our backup guys have played in games and they’ve played in road environments before.”
CFP or no?
Even in Week 0, some tabbed the UNLV-Memphis matchup as a College Football Playoff elimination game for the Group of 6 berth. Mullen isn’t worried about such things.
“We’re certainly in the mix for that, as is everyone in America,” he said. “Only the (selection committee) knows what’s going on. You could go 13-0 and not get in. We control the Mountain West championship. That’s always our focus. If you had to put on goals of wins and losses, winning the Mountain West is the one we control and that’s very much within our deal.
“If you ask me what our team goal is, it’s to be a better team at the end of the year than the beginning. That has always been my goal. If you do that, you tend to have a very, very, very successful season.”
Defensive evaluation
One area UNLV needs to improve on from last season is its defense. But for two costly explosive plays for touchdowns in the 27-21 loss to Memphis, Mullen believes that side of the ball held up.
“I mean, ‘happy’ is a hard word,” he said. “I thought we played good defense. I don’t think we played great. There are areas we need to be better at. I thought we tackled really well in the open field. But they took five deep shots and were 3 of 5, hitting one for a touchdown and getting two (pass interference) calls. That’s where we need to be better, winning those battles.”
Contact Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com. Follow @edgraney on X.
