After facing off against the winners of last year’s Mountain West championship game, Utah State’s very next game will pit it against the other contestant in that same matchup, the UNLV Rebels. It’ll be the capstone of what could be one of the toughest six-game stretches in a long time for USU. This could wind up being a pivotal game for the Aggies, could be in dire straits by this point in the season. Or, from an optimistic point of view, perhaps USU will be looking for one more statement win heading into the easier half of its schedule.
This is the sixth installment in a series of 12 opponent previews that will go in-depth on each of the Aggies foes for the 2024 football season.
Game Info
- Game Day: Oct. 11
- Location: Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium (Logan, UT)
- Kickoff Time: 7 p.m.
- TV Broadcast: CBS Sports Network
Quick-Hit Info on UNLV
- Head Coach: Barry Odom (2nd season at UNLV, 9-5 record)
- 2023 Record: 9-5 (6-3 in MW)
- 2023 Offense Rank: 22nd (34.4 points per game)
- 2023 Defense Rank: 89th (28.6 points allowed per game)
- Returning Production Rank — 66th
- 2024 Preseason Consensus Ranking — 69th
History of Utah State vs UNLV
- All-Time: Utah State leads 18-8
- Current Streak: UNLV is on a one-game streak
- First-ever Meeting: Sept. 25, 1971 (Utah State won 27-7)
- Last Meeting: Sept. 24, 2022 (UNLV won 34-24)
The Aggies and Rebels didn’t meet in 2022, perhaps for the best as USU wasn’t having its greatest season and UNLV wound up winning its division and appearing in the Mountain West title game (more on that later). Before 2022, Utah State had won a series-best six straight games spanning 2012 to 2021 with numerous blowouts but a few close games in Las Vegas (two different 28-24 results, one in 2013 and the other in 2021). UNLV is gearing up for what it thinks will be a new age in football, perhaps akin to USU’s own paradigm shift back in the early 2010s. This series could get a lot more interesting in the future.
UNLV Players to Watch
- Ricky White III (WR)
- Tiger Shanks (OL)
- Jackson Woodard (LB)
- Cameron Oliver (CB)
- Jacob De Jesus (KR/PR)
The Rebels in 2023
Prior to the 2023 season, UNLV had two bowl appearances in the entirety of the 21st century and none since 2013 (that year still only being an OK 7-6 season). Marcus Arroyo looked like he was getting UNLV back on the right track in 2022 by going 5-7, which was the best record for the program in half a decade. But Arroyo’s squads had gone 2-16 the two years before so that slight turnaround in 2022 wasn’t enough for him to keep his job. Barry Odom stepped in and immediately took the program to new heights.
Unlike in 2022, when Arroyo’s team started 4-1 but lost six straight games and lost out on a bowl game (and sealed Arroyo’s fate of being fired), the Odom-led Rebels didn’t falter after their own 4-1 start. UNLV ended up winning six of its first seven games — the one loss being to eventual national champion Michigan — and had secured the elusive bowl appearance by mid-October.
The latter end of 2023 did see a few hiccups, losses to Fresno State and San Jose State, but that didn’t keep UNLV from not only appearing in the Mountain West championship game, but also hosting the event as the top team in the regular season standings. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t aid much in the title game itself, which ended in a 44-20 defeat.
Those losses at the end of the regular season were disappointing, but UNLV had already long secured entry into a bowl game and the Rebels were picked to play in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, the first appearance in a bowl since the 2013 Heart of Dallas Bowl. A win would be the first victory in a bowl since 2000 but that wasn’t to be as the Rebels were defeated 49-36, coming up just a little too short on a second-half rally and giving up 21 fourth-quarter points to fall against the 19th-ranked Jayhawks.
2024 Season Prospects
UNLV’s somewhat whimpering end to an otherwise spectacular resurgent season was compounded by a key offseason loss, that of quarterback Jayden Maiava. The dual-threat QB transferred to USC and left a hole at QB. That battle has not been won by anybody just yet (at least as far as anyone on the outside of the program knows). Three players are seemingly in line to take the job. On one hand is a veteran backup Cameron Friel. Once upon a time, Friel was the UNLV starter as a freshman in 2021. In nine games he threw for just over 1,600 yards but had six touchdowns to 11 interceptions in what was a 2-10 season for the Rebels. The next two possibilities are both FCS transfers, Matthew Sluka and Hajj-Malik Williams.
Both Sluka and Williams fit the bill of being a dual-threat QB that could replicate what Maiava did last year. Sluka is about as dual-threat as a player can get as he threw for 1,728 yards last year at Holy Cross but ran for 1,247 yards. Williams threw for nearly 2,600 yards in 2023 and ran for 255 (he has 1,600 rushing yards in his career).
“I think we have a winner in all three of them,” Odom said of his QB room. “I think we have the opportunity to play winning football through the quarterback position with any of the three and it’ll be interesting to see how it levels out and who is the starter to begin the season.”
Whoever winds up with that starting job will have a long runway for success as UNLV will surround that player with top-flight support talent. Most well-known is All-American wide receiver Ricky White III. The dynamic WR caught 88 passes for 1,483 yards and eight touchdowns. Despite receivers Tory Horton and Jalen Royals being in the same conference, White has a very good argument to be the best in the Mountain West.
“Impactful player,” Odom said. “He’s worked extremely hard since our bowl game last year on improving his game. “We’re excited about what he can do and what he will do and he’s one of the leaders of our team.”
Even aside from White, UNLV has plenty of talent on the offensive side. Tiger Shanks at right tackle is a reigning First Team All-MW lineman, and the Rebels have two other notable starters on the O-line. Left guard Jalen St. John was named to Phil Steele’s First Team All-MW and center Jack Hasz made Steele’s Third Team. The trio of returning linemen from last year will create arguably the best O-line in the conference and pave the way for whoever wins the QB role and a potentially dangerous Jai’Den Thomas. Last year Thomas was the No. 2 back behind Vincent Davis, but still had 503 rushing yards and led the team with 12 rushing touchdowns (fourth in the MW).
The Rebels’ defense also returns a pair of All-MW players, namely linebacker Jackson Woodard, who also earned preseason co-Defensive Player of the Year honors, and cornerback Cameron Oliver. Woodard is the leader in tackles among all returning Mountain West players, he also had 9.0 TFLs and 2.5 sacks. Oliver’s five interceptions led the conference last year. But unlike the offense, which will largely be aiming to match last year’s top-25 offense, the defense has room to improve, especially based on the last three games of the season. Prior to Nov. 25, UNLV had allowed 25.4 points per game. In the three games following, the Rebels gave up 37 to SJSU, 44 to Boise State and 49 to Kansas. The face UNLV returns seven starters on defense should give it a well-paved path for the necessary improvement on that side of the ball.
So much of UNLV’s 2024 season could come down to whether it can live up to what Odom said about “play(ing) winning football through the quarterback position.” If the Rebels do so, they’re likely the best team in the conference given the rest of the returning talent on the roster. If Sluka, Williams and Friel turn out to be disappointments, it could be one of the most frustrating seasons for UNLV as it watches a talented team underperform due to incompetence at QB.
There is one potential worry, and that’s whether UNLV truly proved it was a high-level team last year. After all, the Rebels had a pretty easy strength of schedule. Playing the eventual champs, Michigan, bolsters the resume but losing by four touchdowns doesn’t give UNLV any credit for that matchup. Nor does beating Vanderbilt (who ended the year 2-10) by three points. The fact UNLV also went 2-3 against the top six teams in the conference and were blown out at home in the championship game also doesn’t bode spectacularly well. All that said, a 9-5 season is a 9-5 season and UNLV should be at least capable of doing it again in 2024.
Preseason Game Prediction — Close Loss
This will be one of the most telling games of the first half of Utah State schedule. Every game to this point will be one in which the Aggies are clearly supposed to win or clearly supposed to lose. This matchup will likely be the first in which the result is much closer to a coin flip than a predetermined result in the minds of the betting public. I’ve got USU losing this one in a hard-fought contest, which wouldn’t bode very well for USU in that they’d be 2-4 if predictions in previous volumes of this series prove accurate. But if the Aggies find a way to be 3-3 following this game — which isn’t as unrealistic as my own predictions have made it seem — it should be considered an unqualified success.
