No. 24 UNLV doesn’t control its destiny in terms of a Mountain West Conference championship game berth, but a win at San Jose State on Friday night would ensure the Rebels still have a chance.
UNLV (8-2, 4-1 Mountain West) rejoined the College Football Playoff poll on Tuesday and is closing in on its first 10-win season since quarterback Randall Cunningham led the program to its since-vacated 11-2 finish in 1984.
The Rebels need Colorado State to lose one of its final two games against Fresno State or Utah State in order to reach their second straight conference title game and, more importantly, set up a rematch with No. 12 Boise State. UNLV fell to the Broncos 44-20 in last year’s championship.
San Jose State, however, is in a good position to play spoiler themselves. The Spartans (6-4, 3-3) entered last season’s game against UNLV as a slight underdog and ended up winning 37-31.
San Jose State is coming off last Saturday’s home game against Boise State in which it was driving to take a 21-0 lead before the Broncos forced a turnover on downs at the goal line. That kept it a two-possession game, and Boise State quickly woke up from there and ran away with a 42-21 win.
“We were in that game,” Spartans coach Ken Niumatalolo said. “I’m encouraged because we’re doing a lot of good things. I feel like we stopped ourselves a lot on offense. We looked at a lot of things to improve on.”
San Jose State quarterback Walker Eget has led the nation in passing yards in consecutive weeks, eclipsing his career high in both games. His 446 yards through the air against Boise State was the most in a game for a Mountain West quarterback this season. Eget replaced Emmett Brown as the starter in October.
The Spartans have the nation’s top receiver this season, as redshirt senior Nick Nash leads the country in both receptions (95) and receiving yards (1,282). San Jose State also has the Mountain West’s second-leading receiver behind Nash in Justin Lockhart, who has 925 yards on 48 receptions.
“They’ve got an elite group of receivers,” UNLV coach Barry Odom said. “Their quarterback’s playing really well. Schematically, they caused some issues on their alignments with space. We’ve got to do a great job. We talk all the time in our defensive meetings about eliminating explosive plays. They are going to get some, we’ve got to minimize those.”
UNLV is certainly not lacking in the wide receiver department either, as All-American Ricky White III ranks third in the Mountain West with 867 receiving yards and second with 63 receptions. His performance improved mightily following UNLV’s first three games of the season, coinciding with their quarterback switch to Hajj-Malik Williams.
Williams has impressed in his seven games as the starter as well. He leads the team with 646 rushing yards and eight scores on the ground to go along with 1,436 yards, 14 touchdowns and three interceptions through the air.
Mountain West preseason Defensive Player of the Year Jackson Woodard has perhaps been the Rebels’ MVP this season. The linebacker’s 99 total tackles, four interceptions and 3.5 sacks have him on the watchlist for the Nagurski, Bednarik and Butkus awards.
Woodard is also among the national finalists for the Burlsworth award, given to the top player in college football who began their career as a walk-on. Woodard initially played under Odom at Arkansas, Brandon Burlsworth’s alma mater.
