I've been anxiously awaiting the start of UNLV's 2024 football season. Last year's unprecedented success caught me off-guard, and I was afraid that it would be a fluke Cinderella story that would not repeat. Especially after standout QB Jaydan Maiava transferred to USC, I was afraid that UNLV would not be able to replicate last year's success.
Well, they certainly got 2024 off to a good start with a blow-out (almost shut-out) victory over Big 12 Houston Cougars. UNLV appeared dominant in all phases of the game. In fact, they were actually more dominant than the final score makes it appear, since they had multiple score-less trips the redzone after failing to convert a fourth down and having a field goal blocked. This could easily have been a 37-0 shut-out.
But at the same time, I'm not sure if the victory was as much a dominating performance by UNLV, or just an abysmal performance by Houston. Watching the game on Saturday afternoon, it looked to me like Houston's offense (and starting quarterback Donovan Smith, in particular) were just not prepared to play football Saturday night. Donovan Smith was off-target, took sacks, made a lot of bad decisions, and just generally looked like a deer caught in headlights. When backup QB Ui Ale came in late in the 4th quarter, he and Houston's offense carved through UNLV's defense like butter and scored a seemingly effortless touchdown. Maybe UNLV had all its backups in on defense at that point. It's hard to tell on broadcast cameras.
I really do not think that UNLV's defense is quite as good as it looked against Houston. I think it was mostly just a bad game by Houston's offense, and by Donovan Smith especially. If that backup QB had been playing earlier in the game, Houston surely would have scored more than 7 points. If he had started the game, who knows? Maybe Houston would have won.
That being said, the defense does look a lot better than it has been in the past. Defense has always been an Achilles' heel for UNLV's football team. They have a long-standing history of letting opposing offenses get away with mistakes, and of giving up big plays down the field in critical situations. Last year, the defense played better than usual, helping to take UNLV to the Mountain West Championship game and a bowl. In this case, however, Houston played poorly and made a lot of mistakes, and UNLV's defense punished Houston for almost every mistake they made. This defense did not let Houston get away bad play. That is an improvement, and it is worth celebrating!
Photo credit: UNLV Athletics.
UNLV's defense punished Houston's offense for every mistake it made, including this pick-6 on a screen pass.
On the other side of the ball, Matt Sluka's debut as UNLV's starting QB after the loss of Jaydan Maiava was not terribly impressive. He ran well, and threw 2 touchdowns early to Jacob De Jesus. One of them was an absolutely fantastic throw on-the-run on a corner route that was placed exactly where it needed to be. It was all the more impressive because Jacob De Jesus is a pretty short receiver. He's listed at 5-foot, 7-inches. But Sluka managed to get the ball over the underneath defender, and also in a position where De Jesus could catch it and keep a foot in bounds. In fact, I think he just barely got both feet in-bounds! So that was an impressive play by both Sluka and De Jesus.
But Sluka also threw an interception into double coverage in the end zone, and only put up 71 total passing yards. There were also situations later in the game in which UNLV opted not to pass on third and long situations. Instead, they would simply hand-off the ball, or run Sluka on an Option QB Keeper. I wonder if UNLV's coaching staff didn't entirely trust Sluka to not make a mistake and potentially let Houston back into the game.
But then again, the coaches still trusted him enough to leave him on the field. Despite being in absolute control of the game from start to finish, we never saw either Hajj-Malik Williams or Cameron Friel behind center late in the blow-out.
It's possible that UNLV's play-callers simply decided to play things conservative and didn't want to show any of their fancier passing plays. They may have just wanted to keep the clock running and end the game more quickly and without any major injuries. Maybe Sluka will light up the stat sheet in future games? And hopefully, Ricky White will be the recipient of more explosive plays, so that he can impress NFL scouts enough to get drafted in the first day or 2 of the 2025 NFL draft.
Photo credit: UNLV Athletics.
Matt Sluka's debut was effective, but underwhelming.