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Friday, Nov. 28, 2025 | 2 a.m.
Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
UNLV football has put together one of the best seasons in school history for the third consecutive year, but the inaugural campaign under first-year coach Dan Mullen hasn’t come without its hiccups.
A six-game winning streak to start the year felt relatively muted because of the Scarlet and Gray defense grading out as one of the worst stop units in the nation statistically. The troubles eventually caught up to them with a two-game midseason swoon where they gave up a combined 96 points to Boise State and New Mexico.
But Mullen remained remarkably patient through it all, at least by college coaching standards, as he harped on the same bigger-picture goal for weeks on end.
“As Coach Mullen says, ‘We want to peak at the end of the year,’” edge rusher Chief Borders shared in a news conference earlier this week. “That’s what we’re starting to do as a team, as brothers, put it all together and continue to take our steps that are already paved out for us.”
UNLV has delivered Mullen’s wish so far, winning three in a row with a string of its best defensive efforts of the year, including shutting out both Hawaii and Colorado State in the second half.
But the steps now need to turn into a stomp.
Anything less than a flattening of archrival UNR in the 51st edition of the Fremont Cannon game at 6 p.m. Saturday at Mackay Stadium — with the game broadcast on CBS Sports Network — will put a dent in an otherwise sterling season.
The Rebels have a chance to keep the cannon red for the fourth consecutive time, an accomplishment the program hasn’t banked in 21 years.
They long ago locked up history by becoming bowl eligible for the third consecutive year for the first time ever, an accomplishment that illustrates how far the Rebels have come and one that shouldn’t be glossed over.
But it would feel a bit hollow if accompanied by leaving the cannon in the Sierra Nevada and having no shot at playing in next week’s Mountain West Championship Game.
Constant improvement might have been Mullen’s goal going into the season, but beating the Wolf Pack and snapping the 31-year conference-championship drought topped fans’ lists.
A shot at the latter objective can’t be guaranteed, but the only way it’s possible is by taking care of the former.
“There’s a computer out there that’s going to figure it all out it looks like, so we’ve just got to worry about winning on Saturday, worry about what we can control,” Mullen said. “The only thing we can control is to play better this week than we did last week. … I don’t know what the computer will spit out.”
UNLV will be playing directly for a third consecutive championship game berth if San Diego State beats New Mexico on the road today and Utah State upends Boise State at home.
If both Boise State and San Diego State prevail, UNLV is out.
The likeliest path to Mullen's computer scenario comes if UNLV, New Mexico and Utah State all win as that would create a four-way tie at the top of the standings.
A composite of ratings would then be employed to determine the two best teams. UNLV does appear in strong position in that scenario at the moment given their standing in current publicly available metrics, but it’s impossible to project forward.
That’s both because the results from this weekend’s games will also be incorporated and one data set, the SportSource ratings, are not publicly available.
“This is the biggest game of the year,” tackle Austin Boyd said. “Winning this game puts us in the best position possible.”
Boyd is one of the few players on the team who comes close to fully comprehending the meaning of the rivalry. A junior who's stuck at UNLV for his whole career, he’s yet to experience a loss against UNR, including a 45-27 win at Reno he particularly treasured his freshman year.
He said he’s implored his teammates to “embrace" the rivalry, and has no doubt the largely transplant roster will because of the close nature Mullen has fostered.
Mullen himself has never even been to Reno despite spending more than 30 years in the college football coaching industry, including a pair in the Mountain West with Utah in 2003 and 2004.
But he says he has a sense of the bad blood from in-state showdowns at his previous spots, which he says, “just sit differently,” than other rivalries.
The good news for UNLV fans is Mullen is remembered fondly at Mississippi State for going 5-4 in the heated Egg Bowl rivalry that Ole Miss has traditionally dominated. He had less success in his only other pre-UNLV stop as a head coach at Florida, where he had a losing record both against in-conference nemesis Georgia and in-state adversary Florida State.
“Guys have been involved in rivalries,” Mullen said of his current team. “I think they grasp the understanding of that. Does it lead to maybe the mayhem you see when everybody has been there for five years going against each other? Sometimes maybe not so much anymore, but it doesn’t diminish how big of a game it is for the players on both sidelines.”
Mullen might be underappreciated considering how strong of a season he’s put together this year.
There’s a perception that he stepped into a perfect situation built by former coach Barry Odom, which is true to an extent. UNLV now has the resources and recent winning culture that rivals headlined by UNR envy.
But Odom being in a hurry to bolt for Purdue a year ago might have been about more than just the six-year, $39 million contract he signed at the Big Ten school. Perhaps knowing the staples of his two UNLV teams were leaving and the unavoidably transitional state of the roster for this season expedited his departure.
To his credit, Mullen overhauled the personnel on the fly and, now with a shot at double-digit regular season wins, it’s safe to say he did it exceptionally well.
To some, that may still take convincing. The lingering Scarlet and Gray skeptics might be really scant if UNLV stifles UNR again, and especially if that rivalry triumph lifts Mullen’s squad into the Mountain West Championship Game.
“Beating the team up North, keeping the cannon red is always a great memory,” Boyd said. “It’s going to stay red this year, for sure.”
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