Boy, am I glad I went to this game last night! 45-10. What fun. Here’s my breakdown of how it went:
UNLV Offense: B+. I’m tempted to call it an A- here, but I don’t want to be overenthusiastic. We played above average ball, exploiting most opportunities given us and pressing our advantages to the fullest.
QB Omar Clayton was dependable in moving the ball down the field; he’s consistently strong at it. Most of the time, when a quarterback can’t find a receiver and tries to bolt for what it’s worth, it doesn’t go well, but Clayton usually makes it work.
Junior Michael Johnson was on fire tonight, showing up everywhere at once. He didn’t quite carry the team, but on a bad night, his performance still could’ve. He’s going to make a name for himself at this rate.
On another note, one of our wide receivers is in one of my English classes, and that penalty call against him was CRAP.
UNLV Defense: C+. Look at tonight’s stats–we dominated in every category, but New Mexico wasn’t too far behind in first downs. That smells like sloppy defense to me. We’ve gotten a little better over these first few games, but we still have a ways to go–if we’d played like this against a decent team, we would’ve lost.
The highlight here was a second half sack of UNM’s QB that practically snapped the guy in half, and the subsequently dropped ball was picked up and run in for a touchdown.
UNM Defense: C-. Swiss cheese puts up a better net than this.
UNM Offense: F. This is where they were just unforgivably awful. Their receivers often seemed to be purposely trying to run into the thickest pockets of our defenders that they could find. They lost the ball so many times that I lost count–one of their many turnovers resulted from a throw that literally bounced off the intended receiver and right into our arms. It looked like a scene from a slapstick comedy.
New Mexico decided to experiment by putting in a freshman as their starting quarterback. Big mistake. At one point, he threw the ball into the ground so obviously on purpose that the crowd didn’t boo so much as collectively roll its eyes.
Verdict: it was fun to see us win (for a change), but beating a bad team having an especially bad night doesn’t count for much. Still, it gave us a chance to hone some promising skills.
UNR beat BYU at Provo yesterday, which, no matter what your conference or ranking, is hard to do. This doesn’t bode well for our rivalry game next weekend, and history is already on Reno’s side. If we play the way we did last night against them the way they played yesterday, who would win? Hard to say for sure, but I can’t favor UNLV. But, it would be one heck of a game. That’s what I hope to see.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Read Full Post »
I got to see Saturday night’s sold out game at the Thomas and Mack, courtesy of my father-in-law. The Rebels have had only a so-so season, often playing, as R-J columnist Ed Graney said, like “
