Odds in UNLV Football's Favor for A Program-Defining Season
Long-suffering UNLV football began its encore from a 9-win season with an impressive start to 2024. Can the Rebels keep the hot streak rolling?
A city built on losing loves winners. And Barry Odom is building an unlikely winner in Las Vegas.
When Jerry Tarkanian’s teams played in Final Fours and transformed college basketball, Las Vegas reveled in the Runnin’ Rebels. The WNBA champion Aces were at the forefront of growing the league’s mainstream appeal before Caitlin Clark hysteria, drawing impressive audiences to Mandalay Bay since the franchise moved to Sin City from Austin.
It’s not just basketball, either: When the NHL expanded with the introduction of the Golden Knights, Vegas immediately established one of the league’s rowdiest home-ice advantages. The flipside of the Golden Knights’ instant popularity, built on the strength of an improbable Year 1 run to the Stanley Cup Finals, are the NFL’s Raiders.
The Raiders have a national brand, and were thus guaranteed to have ready-made backers no matter where they relocated. Still, the Raiders’ identity is reflective of the organization’s Oakland roots in a way that cannot be manufactured. Had they moved to say, San Antonio — a great sports town with its commitment to the NBA’s Spurs and impressive attendance for UTSA Roadrunners football games — the Raiders may have been able to quickly reestablish themselves as the true hometown team.
But in a destination city, visiting franchises’ fans flood into Las Vegas. They see their favorite teams win a fair bit since the Raiders moved there in 2020, too. Going .500 or worse in 3-of-4 seasons is a tough sell for a city that’s been treated to championships from other newcomers like the Aces and Golden Knights.
Football fans in Las Vegas wanting to see a winner at Allegiant Stadium should adjust their schedules from Sundays to Saturdays. Year 2 of the Barry Odom era at UNLV kicked off with the Rebels suggesting their 2023 season was no aberration.
The folks in UNLV’s hometown who determine such things set the Rebels as 3.5-point underdogs in their season opener at Houston. UNLV surrendered barely more than that in total points to the Cougars, dominating in a 27-7 romp.
While Houston entered the season tabbed to finish near the bottom of the new-look Big 12 Conference, Cougars first-year coach Willie Fritz has an established track record of getting the most from his teams right away. Sam Houston reached the FCS National Championship Game in Fritz’s second year, Georgia Southern won the Sun Belt in Fritz’s debut campaign, and he had a long-struggling Tulane program built from the bottom of FBS into a bowl fixture by Year 3.
I suspect Fritz’s history factored into Houston being tabbed as a favorite despite the rebuilding project its new coach faces. Likewise, I have to believe UNLV’s history dictated the locals’ line-setting.
Success has been fleeting for Rebels football, never mind sustaining it. The Rebels went a decade between winning seasons when last year’s team broke through for a stunning nine wins and berth in the Mountain West Conference Championship Game.
It’s been 40 years since UNLV recorded consecutive winning seasons, dating back to the days of the old Big West Conference.
Things just might be different this time around at UNLV, however.
UNLV overwhelmed Houston defensively, allowing just 38 total rushing yards on 26 carries. Now, that statistic is a bit misleading since not all of the lost yardage came on rushing plays — but racking up an astounding six sacks, that’s not a bad thing for the Rebels.
Jackson Woodard was responsible for three of them. With the pressure he helped generate, UNLV came up with a pair of interceptions, both by Jalen Catalon. Woodard and Catalon are reflective of the way in which Odom and their staff have built up this Rebels roster, successfully leveraging the transfer portal to give prospects buried on the depth chart at brand-name programs an opportunity.
Woodard had been a role player at Arkansas, where Odom was an assistant before replacing Marcus Arroyo at UNLV. He was sensational in the Rebels’ 2023 breakout, racking up 116 tackles with nine for loss. He’s already eclipsed his sack total from a season ago and he’s set an early All-America pace in 2024.
Catalon was a key figure in Arkansas’ excellent 2021 campaign, but injury issues limited him both in 2022 and following his transfer to Texas last year. With UNLV providing Catalon another chance to make good on the NFL promise he showed early in Fayetteville, the talented safety looks poised to capitalize.
Odom’s staff is also utilizing transfer rules to elevate standouts from lower-division programs. Matthew Sluka was someone with whom I was quite familiar from his outstanding play at Holy Cross.
Although his debut wasn’t eye-popping statistically, throwing for two touchdowns and leading the win sets a solid foundation for Sluka in his transition to a conference-title contender in the FBS.
Sluka’s progression should be a fun storyline to follow with his UNLV team. So, too, will be the interest the Rebels generate as the season progresses. Typically, college teams playing in NFL stadiums leads to significantly more negatives than positives; I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Miami’s decline coincided almost directly with the demolish of the Orange Bowl and the Hurricanes moving to the Dolphins’ [INSERT CORPORATE SPONSOR DU JOUR HERE] Stadium.
In UNLV’s case, however, the Rebels traded the remote Sam Boyd Stadium, located 10 miles east of campus, for the much closer Allegiant. The Raiders’ home also being right near the action of The Strip can be a boon for UNLV.
Three of the Rebels’ next four home games are ripe for the program establishing itself as a winner worthy of attention: UNLV bookends a visit from Syracuse on Oct. 4 with Mountain West dates likely to shape the league’s title race.
Fresno State comes to Allegiant Stadium on Sept. 28, while Boise State returns on Oct. 25 in a rematch of last December’s MW Championship Game. That has the potential to be a defining moment for not just UNLV football, but the Las Vegas sports scene: It’s on a Friday night, with kickoff shortly after completion of a rare afternoon game for the Golden Knights, hosting the Ottawa Senators about a mile away at T-Mobile Arena.
Boise State’s the conference’s undisputed standard bearer, and this year features a legitimate Heisman contender in running back Ashton Jeanty — who, for my money, had the best individual performance of any1 player in Week 1.
The stakes are high for UNLV football this season, but the rewards if the Rebels keep this hot hand alive are unprecedented in the program’s history.
Except maybe Tetairoa McMillan.