I was very harsh of Dan Mullen's premiere performance as UNLV's head coach, in which UNLV barely eked by with a 1-touchdown win over an FCS opponent. I even went so far as to say that I suspect he would be fired sooner rather than later. Much to my surprise, UNLV has since beaten Sam Houston and UCLA to start the season 3-0. In fact, UNLV was absolutely dominating UCLA in the first half, going up 23-3 by halftime.

The defense, in particular, looked dramatically improved in the first half against UCLA. They were playing much more disciplined. They were gap-sound, weren't giving up the huge cutback lanes that had been their Achilles heel in the first 2 weeks, and pass coverage looked tight. They even got a couple sacks! It was a dramatic turn-around.

Is the team much better than that week 0 performance against Idaho State made them look? And do I owe Dan Mullen and his staff an apology for being so harsh?

The answer is: probably.

But there are some caveats. The biggest caveat, of course, is that UNLV did not look nearly as good in the second half. They almost blew the game, giving up 20 2nd-half points, while only scoring 7 of their own, in order to win the game by a single TD. UNLV's defense couldn't get UCLA off the field. In fact, UNLV ran a whopping total of 4 offensive plays and a punt in the entire 3rd quarter, because UCLA possessed the ball for the entire rest of that quarter.

PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Marcus, Las Vegas Sun via AP

Anthony Colandrea was forced to play "hero ball" too often for comfort.

Moreso, I still have big concerns with the offense -- the line in particular. Even though UNLV's offense appeared to be rolling while they put up 23 first-half points, the offensive performance was a bit rough. Most of that production came on improvisation on broken plays. Quarterback Anthony Colandrea was frequently forced to scramble, and was lucky that his receivers were consistently able to come back towards him and catch passes on the perimeter. And when there weren't receivers open at all, Colandrea was usually able to find a soft spot in the defense and scramble for first downs.

Well, it was good while it lasted, I guess.

Dan Mullen is not a replacement for Barry Odom. Honestly, I didn't expect that anybody would be. Odom seemed like a hard-ass coach who pushed his players to get the most out of them. With the sole exception of that second Championship loss to Boise State before he departed for Purdue, Odom's teams always looked ready to play. They played fast, intense, smart, and disciplined.

Dan Mullen's premiere UNLV team was none of those things. They walked onto the home turf as 30-point favorites against an FCS team that was below average, even for an FCS team. And yet, for the first half (or so) of that game, you might have thought that UNLV was the FCS team.

The defense, in particular, looked woefully un-prepared to play in the first quarter or 2. They were slow, out-of-position, and consistently missed tackles. Nobody seemed to play with any gap discipline or containment. Idaho State's offensive line was able to wash the entire defense down and create cutback lanes large enough to cruise a battleship through. And blown coverages in the secondary lead to a couple more go-ahead scores for Idaho State.

The offense wasn't much better though. The offensive scheme was pedestrian, as it lacked Brennan Marrion's novel "Go-Go" spark. The offensive line couldn't hold blocks, and both QBs were forced into frequent panic situations in which they had to scramble for their lives.

PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Marcus, Las Vegas Sun.

UNLV showed poor gap discipline and containment, opening huge holes for Idaho State.

Both sides of the ball were also plagued with penalties. Over 90 yards of penalties, I think. Worse yet, 2 missed [relatively easy] field goals showed that special teams also lacks discipline and focus.

It was bad!

The Bears have been on a roll in the offseason for the past few years. First, was pulling off the blockbuster trade in 2023 to get D.J. Moore from the Panthers, and their 2024 1st round draft pick. That 2024 pick turned into the #1 overall pick in 2024, which the Bears used to draft Caleb Williams (along with their own 9th overall pick, in which they drafted Rome Odunze). Now, in 2025, they managed to sign Ben Johnson (perhaps the most sought-after head coaching prospect in 2025). They also walked away from the free agency signing period with a revamped offensive line that should give Caleb Williams much better interior protection in 2025.

The Ben Johnson hire, by itself, was enough for many people to crown the Bears "offseason champs" for the third year running. But I was a bit hesitant. I was hoping that they would get the trifecta of also having an exceptional draft. And my definition of "exceptional draft" was to somehow manage to select Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty. Jeanty was a controversial topic among Bears fans. Conventional wisdom says that drafting a running back early in the first round is a waste of draft capital. But I think this is wrong for 3 reasons.

Photo credit: Boise State Football.

I was 1 thousand percent on the Ashton Jeanty bandwagon.

The case for drafting a running back (named Ashton Jeanty)

The first is that the NFL is changing. It isn't the "passing league" that it was for most of the 2000's and 2010's. Passing production has tapered off for the past few years, and even elite quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Matt Stafford are struggling to put up 300 yards and more than 1 or 2 TDs on a week-to-week basis. In fact, in 2024, not a single QB reached the 5,000 yard mark (Joe Burrow was the top passer, with 4,918 yards). And that is despite the fact that there's a whole extra, 17th game on the schedules now! The reason for this is that defensive coordinators are getting sick of getting torched for 4 or 500 yards and 4 TDs every game. They're building defensive rosters specifically to stop the pass, and are moving away from run-stuffing Cover 3 and Cover 1 schemes in favor of calling a lot of Cover 4 and Cover 2 in order to limit offenses' ability to throw down the field. This has opened up space underneath and lead to a resurgence of elite running backs, with Saquan Barkley having one of the best years of any running back ever, breaking the single-season rushing record (including playoffs) on route to leading the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory.

The second reason is that I firmly believe that teams should prioritize drafting for need, unless there are simply no good options at those needed positions, when your pick comes around. Running back was one of the Bears' top needs this season. Only offensive tackle was arguably a more important need.

Photo credit: AP Photo / David Longstreath.

Jeanty's 2024 season was 2nd only to Barry Sanders.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, is that Jeanty was an elite prospect -- possibly a generational one. His 2024 season is 2nd only to Barry Sanders in terms of rushing yards, and he's tied for 7th overall for TDs. The only reason that Ashton Jeanty did not win the Heisman is that Travis Hunter was an ultra-rare 2-way player, who excelled at both offense and defense. I totally understand selecting Hunter for the Heisman, even though my vote would have been for Jeanty. Honestly, I think the committee should have award co-Heisman trophies to both Hunter and Jeanty, due to the unique circumstances surrounding this year's award (having a 2-way player, and a record-book bell-cow running back).

UNLV managed to pull off one final, pleasant surprise this year by actually beating Cal in the L.A. Bowl. After the news that head coach Barry Odom left UNLV to take the head coaching job at Purdue, UNLV went from being a 4-ish point favorite to being an underdog in that game. Things started out shaky, with the offense having difficulty moving the ball in the first quarter. But the defense played well, and the offense eventually got its footing just enough to seal an 11-point victory.

Credit to interim coach Del Alexander, who kept the team focused, and called a pretty good game, including a masterful fake punt on a 4th and long inside UNLV's own 40 yard line! UNLV's scouts did their job and identified that Cal would be vulnerable to a play like that, and Alexander had the guts to call it in a completely surprising situation to steal all the momentum back in UNLV's favor.

In any case, I was pretty sour on the idea of the bowl game. I wasn't going to be able to attend the L.A. Bowl in person anyway, because it was in the middle of the week on a Wednesday, and I couldn't get the time off work, since I had already committed all of my remaining time off to the week between Christmas and New Year. But after Odom abandoned the team, and offensive coordinator Brennan Marion was snubbed for the head coaching promotion, I was kind of mad at both UNLV and the NCAA for allowing this collapse to happen. Though I did end up signing up for a 7-day free trial of Fubo in order to watch the bowl on TV, out of a sense of obligation.

Complete changing of the guard

Dan Mullen seems like a fine hire. He's had success in the SEC, which is the most difficult conference in college football. If a coach can win there, they can win anywhere.

I was really hoping for some consistency in terms of the team's identity. In that regard, I was rooting for Brennan Marion or defensive coordinator Mike Scherer to get the head coaching job. Marion's offense was as much a part of UNLV's recent success as Odom's head coaching was. And Scherer's defense was the best defense I've ever seen from this team. Odom, Marion, and Scherer successfully turned a perennial basement-dweller into a potential powerhouse that proved it could compete in a big boy conference like the Big 12. I wanted that identity to become fundamental to the team's DNA in the way that the Flexbone Triple Option is fundamental to the identity of the service academies. I wanted the Go-Go Offense to be "the UNLV offense" to the layman and casual college football fan. That success should have been rewarded by UNLV. Honestly, I thought that Marion would be a shoe-in.

But it seems like Marion may have some personality issues that make him difficult to work with. He may have been the one who promised NIL money to Matt Sluka, which the university couldn't actually afford to pay. I've read that he was almost fired for that. Maybe Odom wanted to fire him, but Harper over-ruled that decision, and maybe that's part of the reason why Odom seemed like he couldn't get out of Vegas fast enough. More generally, I've heard that Marion has a very abrasive personality, and that's not a good quality in a head coach.

Odom did not invite Marion to follow him to Purdue the way he invited Scherer. Instead, Marion is going to be the head coach of the Sacramento State Hornets in the Big Sky conference of the FCS. It doesn't seem like there were too many FBS schools banging down Marion's door to invite him to coach their teams. And maybe that is for very good reason. If that's the case, then the Sacramento State football team is a powder keg waiting to explode.

UNLV passed on OC Brennan Marion [LEFT] in favor of former SEC coach Dan Mullen.

So in summary, UNLV has lost is entire winning coaching staff, and it will be losing a majority of its starters to graduation (including a few potential NFL draftees). Ricky White, Jacob De Jesus, Jackson Woodard, Tiger Shanks, Jalen Catalon, Cameron Oliver, Hajj-Malik Williams, Jett Elad, and others will all be graduating, with White, Woodard, and Oliver having already declared for the NFL Draft. Some of UNLV's top recruits have also already switched their commitments to follow Odom to Purdue, and who knows how many under-classmen will follow suit and transfer to Purdue? Will Jaiden "Jet" Thomas still be a Rebel next year? Or Antonio Doyle? Or Fisher Camac?

Mullen will certainly have to do a lot of building through the transfer portal.

The NCAA needs to regulate in-season talent poaching!

This story is also bigger than just UNLV. The NCAA should really be paying close attention to what's going on here. You have a team that was 1-game away from making the inaugural College Football Playoff, and they had their head coach poached out from under them the week of a conference championship game. That should not be happening!

The dream of crashing the inaugural College Football Playoff is over for UNLV. They lost the Mountain West Championship to Boise State for the second year in a row. Boise will be the automatic Group of 5 representative in the playoff. What's more, 3rd-ranked (in the CFP rankings) SMU lost its championship game to Clemson, which demoted them to the "at large" 11th seed, and leapfrogged Boise State to the 3rd seed in the playoffs. Boise will have a first-round bye in the playoff, and will host the winner of Penn State and SMU.

The loss pushed UNLV back to #24 in the playoff rankings, and they are expected to be invited to the L.A. Bowl.

Boise State beat UNLV in the Mountain West Championship and will be the 3rd seed in the inaugural playoff.

This loss was rough. I really thought that UNLV had a good chance to beat Boise State. UNLV lost by only 5 points when they first played in Vegas in the middle of the season. UNLV was one of the few teams to actually make Heisman candidate Ashton Jeanty look almost pedestrian -- though he still ran for well over a hundred yards and multiple TDs.

My dad and I drove out to Boise to watch the game on the blue turf, only to see UNLV play, by far, its worst game of the season. I'm not sure if it was the cold (the temperature was 27 degrees at kickoff), or if they finally succumbed to the pressure, or maybe there were other distractions (which I'll talk about later). UNLV's offense looked inept, and the defense failed to make any big plays to swing momentum.

Missed opportunities

Usually-reliable kicker Caden Chittenden missed a field goal in the first half that doinked off the crossbar. UNLV failed to convert a 1st and goal at the 5 yard line into points following a 90-yard run by Kylin James. A penalty backed them up, and they failed to convert the ensuing 4th down. The back-breaker, however, was the defense blowing gap containment and letting Ashton Jeanty run for an 80-yard touchdown just before halftime.

Those 3 mistakes accounted for a swing of 17 points, in a game that ended up being decided by 14. And those weren't the extent of UNLV's opportunities to swing the game. Defenders dropped at least 2 opportunities for easy interceptions, and quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams missed several receivers downfield.

My dad and I drove out to Boise's blue turf to watch the championship game.

Largely though, Boise's coaches did a great job in gameplanning. They seemed absolutely committed to preventing Hajj-Malik from running the ball with the option. They played edge containment and kept spies on both Hajj-Malik and any potential pitch backs, completely killing UNLV's option running game and forcing UNLV to have to call traditional handoffs and pocket passes. UNLV is certainly built to run the ball, but the offensive line looked lethargic and just couldn't open up holes for any of the running backs, with only a few exceptions. Greg Burrell scored the team's only touchdown in the second half.