If both the Sun Devils and Rebels can pound the ball on the ground with the same rate of success as their respective season openers, Saturday night’s contest in Tempe could be on the shorter end of a contest duration. Yet, both teams also seek more balanced offenses to be on display, and each has a to-do list to address after their first game of the season. Let’s take a deep look at this matchup.
UNLV Offense
Though it’s only game two of the 2021 season, after suffering an overtime loss to FCS opponent Eastern Washington, UNLV has made a shift at starting quarterback ahead of its trip to Tempe.
Justin Rogers, a four-star, top-100 recruit from the 2018 class who began his career at TCU, earned the season-opening start for UNLV but managed just 23 passing yards on 7-of-11 pass attempts and was pulled midway through the third quarter when UNLV trailed EWU by a score of 13-6.
In came Doug Brumfield, who helped engineer a 14-point comeback in the fourth quarter, but also threw an interception late in regulation that could have caused UNLV to lose (without overtime), if not for a missed 32-yard field goal by EWU as time expired.
For the game, Brumfield completed 5-of-12 passes for 117 yards and the interception while totaling seven carries for 27 net yards with a touchdown.
Earlier this week, Brumfield was named the starter and is expected to make his first career collegiate start Saturday against Arizona State.
Brumfield was a true freshman on UNLV’s 2020 squad and appeared in two games in reserve duty and completed 9-of-21 passes for 151 yards. In three career appearances, he has completed under 50% of his passes (14-of-33, a Tillman-esque 42.42%).
Transfer specialist extraordinaire Tate Martell is on the UNLV roster at quarterback after returning home to Las Vegas following collegiate cups of coffee at Miami and Ohio State, but a reported thumb injury has kept him out of action. He did not play last week and is not listed on this week’s depth chart.
The brightest star of the entire Rebel roster is sixth-year senior running back Charles Williams, who surpassed 3,000 career rushing yards in last week’s game and very likely will be the key offensive focal point for UNLV this Saturday.
One of the elder statesmen of college football, Williams began his UNLV career in 2016, rushing for 763 yards to set the program’s freshman rushing record. After redshirting due to injury, Williams played the 2018-20 seasons and took advantage of the eligibility freeze to return for 2021.
Williams was a First-Team All-Mountain West Conference pick in 2019 after rushing for 1,257 yards with 11 touchdowns on 12 carries. In six games for 2020, Williams rushed 116 times for 495 yards with four touchdowns and caught 13 passes as well.
Against Eastern Washington in game one, Williams had 27 carries for 172 yards with two touchdowns and added a nine-yard reception.
In 2020, Williams had at least 24 offensive touches in three of the six games played, while he had at least 20 on five occasions in 2019, so a heavy workload is nothing new to the UNLV running back.
Altogether, Williams has 573 total carries for 3,112 yards with 21 rushing touchdowns and 27 career receptions for 117 yards. He currently ranks third all-time at UNLV in career carries (school record is 769), fourth in rushing yards (school record is 3,733), and sixth in rushing touchdowns (school record is 40). Barring injury, he should become UNLV’s all-time leading rusher by the end of the year and could challenge to overtake the top spot in the other two aforementioned categories.
Naturally, with Williams shouldering such a heavy load, the backups do not get a great deal of work. Chad Magyar is listed as the top reserve running back. He ran twice for nine yards in three games in 2020 and did not register a carry in week one.
Kyle Williams, the 2020 Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year, is the clear-cut top receiver for the Rebels. Against Eastern Washington last week, Williams had six receptions for 87 yards. No other Rebel had more than two catches for the game.
This is not a new trend, as, in his rookie season, he had 35 catches for 426 yards with two touchdowns in just six games. To compare, UNLV’s second-leading performer in receptions had 14 and for receiving yards had 146.
Steve Jenkins and Zyell Griffin are slated to start at receiver along with Williams, with Giovanni Fauolo slotted as the top tight end.
In week one, Fauolo had two catches for 15 yards, Griffen had a 23-yard reception, and Jenkins had two catches for six yards. For the six games of 2020, Fauolo had 11 receptions for 108 yards, Griffin had six catches for 118 yards, and Jenkins had nine receptions for 79 yards with two touchdowns.
The UNLV offensive line figures to start Clayton Bradley at left tackle, Julio Garcia II at left guard, Leif Fautanu at center, Daviyon McDaniel at right guard, and Tiger Shanks at right tackle.
Garcia was an Honorable Mention All-Mountain West Conference selection in 2019 and entered the 2021 season with 19 career starts.
UNLV Offense Summary
The Williams and Williams combination is very likely to consume the vast majority of touches – especially in the early going – for UNLV to have any chance at offensive momentum. UNLV must get the ball in the hands of its two best players and hope for miscommunications, poor tackling, and shoddy coverage, and other inefficiencies to get some positive bounces for the visiting team.
Brumfield showed some boom-or-bust potential against Eastern Washington, as he only completed 5-of-12 passes but had a 58-yard completion as well as a 19-yard touchdown run. Rattling him in his first career start should be a primary objective for Sun Devil defenders on Saturday.
In week one against Eastern Washington, UNLV, of course predominately because of Charles Williams, ran the ball well as a team (199 net yards, three touchdowns, 4.5 yards per carry), but the offensive line allowed four sacks to its FCS opponent and in the pass game, the Rebel quarterbacks collectively completed just a tick above 50% of their passes for just 140 total passing yards with no touchdowns and one interception.
If ASU can lay the clamps down on Charles Williams and force the game on Brumfield’s arm and legs, the plausibility of the game quickly escaping to ASU’s favor increases dramatically.
UNLV Defense
The Rebels figure to bring a 3-4 defensive alignment to Tempe, featuring nose tackle Kolo Uasike and defensive ends Connor Murphy and Eliel Ehimare up front. Both Uasike (Mesa Skyline High School) and Murphy, a transfer from USC (Phoenix Brophy Prep), are Arizona natives.
Murphy had six tackles in his UNLV debut, while Uasike had five tackles, and Ehimare had one against Eastern Washington.
Former Arizona transfer Kylan Winborn starts at the SAM position, with Adam Plant, Jr. at WILL, Austin Ajiake at MIKE, and Jacoby Windmon – likely the team’s most talented defender – at JACK.
Last week, Ajiake and Windmon tied for the team-high with 10 tackles apiece, with Windmon adding a sack and a pass breakup. Plant had three tackles and a sack against Eastern Washington, and Winborn had two tackles.
Windmon was the only UNLV player to earn any level of all-conference recognition in 2020 as he was an Honorable Mention All-Mountain West Conference pick. He had 39 tackles, including 6.5 for loss with 5.0 sacks in six games last year. Plant had 31 tackles in six games in 2020 and was the team leader with 7.0 tackles for loss.
In the secondary, UNLV figures to start Aaron Lewis and Nohl Williams at cornerback, with Bryce Jackson at free safety and Phillip Hill at strong safety.
Hill had a strong performance in game one as he was the leader among all UNLV defensive backs with nine tackles last week, adding an interception and a sack. Lewis had seven tackles, Jackson had five, and Williams had one.
Last season, Jackson was UNLV’s leader with 42 tackles in six games.
For those wondering, former ASU defensive back Alex Perry has not been on the UNLV roster since the 2019 season.
UNLV Defense Summary
For the second straight week, ASU faces an opponent that got absolutely obliterated in the pass game as UNLV allowed Eastern Washington to complete 29-of-39 passes for 374 yards. To the Rebels’ credit, however, EWU ran for just 97 net yards at a clip of 2.9 yards-per-carry a week ago.
UNLV showed some opportunistic traits against Eastern Washington, as the Rebels picked off two passes and collected three sacks for the game.
Similar to last week, this is a game in which ASU should be able to exert its offensive will if it is able to stay out of its own way. That means limiting the penalties, tightening up the ball control issues, and overall having just a crisper performance.
If the numbers from last week for UNLV are an indicator, it will be interesting to see if ASU lets it fly a little more in the pass game – especially if DeaMonte Trayanum is questionable at best for the Sun Devils.
UNLV Special Teams
One of few bright spots in UNLV’s season-opening loss was kicker Daniel Gutierrez, who connected on all four of his field goal attempts, including three from beyond 40 yards – one of which from 51 yards.
Punter Evan Silva averaged 35.2 yards on his six punts with a long of 43, so the numbers do not show much proof for UNLV to have field-flipping abilities in the punt game.
Tyleek Collins averaged 18.5 yards on four punt returns, while Nohl Williams averaged 11.0 yards on two punt returns – all coming on one 22-yard return.
Overall Summary
UNLV has only had two bowl appearances in the past 25 years. Only two seasons with more than four wins since 2010. The Rebels have not had a player chosen in the NFL Draft since 2010.
Yet, though UNLV has been one of the poorest performing FBS programs in recent history, Sun Devil fans remember just one thing when it comes to this Vegas team – September 13, 2008, one of the most wretched nights of disappointment in the past several decades of Sun Devil football.
A game no fan who saw it will ever forget, ASU, a nationally ranked team with the Georgia Bulldogs headed to Tempe the following week, suffered a horrifying shock as the Sun Devils sleepwalked into overtime with UNLV and were upset by a score of 23-20 when ASU kicker Thomas Weber had a field goal attempt blocked to end the game.
The sickening thud that echoed through Sun Devil Stadium and created a bone-chilling hush throughout the entire facility can, in many ways, be credited as the “beginning of the end” for Dennis Erickson at Arizona State, even though it was in the first month of just his second season at ASU.
As devastating as the loss was for ASU, it was similarly monumental for UNLV as the Rebels only have one win against what is now a Power Five conference team since that sweaty September night in Tempe as coincidentally, UNLV defeated Iowa State the very next week, again in overtime.
UNLV opened the season with a truly uninspiring loss in overtime to FCS opponent Eastern Washington. Though, of course, the Rebels are an FBS level team, this game – in theory – should present a similar level of competition for ASU as the Sun Devils faced a week ago against San Jose State.
This should be a game that ASU can win by several touchdowns. This should be a game that can help ASU continue to climb up the ranks of the top-25. However, as those of us in attendance and watching on TV witnessed 13 years ago against this very program, those should don’t materialize without the proper effort and execution.
Familiar Faces
· UNLV LS Rex Goossen (Phoenix Brophy Prep), DB Bryce Jackson (Chandler HS), DL Connor Murphy (Phoenix Brophy Prep), DL Seth Robinson (Scottsdale Saguaro HS), and DL Kolo Uasike (Mesa Skyline HS) are all Arizona natives.
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