UNLV returns two catches at tight end and must replace five receiving touchdowns. Keyan Burnett brings the most extensive receiving résumé into that competition, while Matt Byrnes has an opening to turn a full season of appearances into a larger offensive role.
Head coach Dan Mullen has to settle the blocking as well as the targets while Jackson Arnold and Alex Orji compete at quarterback. Their ability to block alongside a rebuilt offensive line will help determine how much receiving work they earn.
Var’Keyes Gumms caught 11 passes for 168 yards and three touchdowns last season, and Nick Elksnis added 12 catches for 145 yards and two scores. Both are gone. Byrnes caught two passes for 24 yards, while Velltray Jefferson and Jae Beasley II appeared in all 14 games without a catch.
Byrnes also played all 14 games. The former Houston tight end, listed at 6-foot-6 and 245 pounds, knows the program and has receiving work available ahead of him. How much he earns will also depend on whether Mullen can trust his blocking alongside a rebuilt offensive line.
Byrnes had receiving experience before reaching Las Vegas, even though his first UNLV season produced only two catches. At Houston, he played 25 games with four starts and caught ten passes for 94 yards and a touchdown. He also worked across the special-teams units. Before that, his spring season at Iowa Western Community College included 14 catches for 170 yards and a score in eight games. He is competing to restore a receiving contribution he has made before, rather than trying the position for the first time.
Byrnes’ year in the offense gives him familiarity with the terminology. He still needs to establish his timing with Arnold or Orji as the quarterback competition continues.
Burnett arrives after stops at Arizona and Kansas. He caught 26 passes for 272 yards and a touchdown during his Arizona career and gives Arnold or Orji a 6-foot-6, 250-pound target. His largest receiving game came in Arizona’s 23-10 win at Utah in 2024, when he caught five passes for 76 yards and a touchdown.
Burnett’s production has varied sharply within his college career. His 18 catches and 217 yards in 2024 were career highs. He had only two catches for 11 yards in four appearances last season. The 26-catch career total therefore includes one much more productive receiving year and a recent season that did not carry it forward. UNLV is recruiting the player who supplied that larger contribution, with work needed to make it regular again.
Before the Utah game in September 2024, Burnett described the responsibility in an interview reported by Arizona Desert Swarm. “The offense is based on timing,” he said. He explained that he needed to reach the correct spot on play action and dropbacks and create more separation.
The Utah game also shows where those catches occurred. Burnett caught a nine-yard pass on second-and-2 during its first scoring drive. In the third quarter, with Arizona backed up near its own goal line, he caught passes for five and 21 yards on consecutive plays. The second converted third-and-7 from Arizona’s 10 and helped sustain a drive that ended in a field goal.
His touchdown came after Utah had cut Arizona’s lead to 16-10 in the fourth quarter. Burnett caught a six-yard pass for a first down early in the response, then finished it with a 35-yard touchdown on third-and-11. The scoring drive covered 87 yards. Those sequences give UNLV a more specific receiving sample than the five-catch total alone: Burnett converted short-yardage and longer third-down situations while Arizona was trying to protect a lead.
Burnett and Byrnes also enter a passing game with a productive back. Jai’Den Thomas caught 39 passes last season, so a tight end will not necessarily be the first underneath option simply because he is available. The quarterback may have Thomas releasing beside him and receivers working farther downfield. Burnett or Byrnes has to reach space that gives the passer a useful additional choice, rather than bring another defender into a teammate’s route. Their competition affects how those targets can function together.
Burnett was recruited to supply that receiving work long before his Utah performance. At Servite, he caught 36 passes for 660 yards and seven touchdowns in 13 varsity appearances. His senior season accounted for 34 catches and six scores, and 247Sports ranked him the No. 8 tight end nationally. His college record now supplies a more relevant question: whether he can turn that receiving ability into a dependable weekly UNLV role.
The work left by Gumms and Elksnis extends beyond throws near the goal line. Against New Mexico, Gumms scored on a 27-yard catch and Elksnis later caught a 14-yard touchdown that gave UNLV its only lead. Burnett’s Utah game gives the Rebels an example of an incoming tight end contributing several catches in a win, though his career total remains modest for a player entering a larger role.
The New Mexico game joined those receiving jobs within the same scoring drive. Thomas caught passes of two, 19 and four yards as UNLV moved from its own 25. The Rebels eventually reached the Lobos’ 27, where Colandrea completed the touchdown to Gumms. The tight end finished the series, while the back’s earlier catches helped put the offense in position.
Elksnis’ touchdown later gave UNLV a 35-34 lead with 6:35 remaining, though the Rebels lost 40-35. The two departing tight ends caught two passes apiece that day for a combined 63 yards and two touchdowns. Their season-long receiving totals were modest, but both supplied consequential finishes in a game the offense was chasing. Burnett and Byrnes will be judged in part by whether their catches arrive on the downs when the quarterback needs another answer.
Jefferson returns at 6-foot-5 and 260 pounds after appearing every week. His route to more offensive work begins with blocking alongside the tackle or helping on short-yardage runs. Those jobs can keep a tight end involved even when the passing game is going elsewhere, as his 14 appearances without a catch showed last season.
Jefferson’s route through college has been different from Burnett’s receiving apprenticeship. He spent a year at Fresno State and two seasons at Fresno City College before reaching UNLV. He originally signed with Utah as a linebacker out of Edison High School. His current 260-pound tight end assignment asks him to work on the other side of the ball from that recruitment. The 14 appearances show he was available through the season, while the lack of catches leaves his receiving contribution to be established.
Jefferson’s blocking requires an evaluation beyond the receiving totals: zero catches do not show which blocks he won or lost, or how often the play asked him to release.
Beasley, a Liberty High School product listed at 6-foot-3 and 230 pounds, is also trying to turn weekly appearances into a more defined offensive job. Bishop Gorman newcomer Andreas Diaz-Nicolaidis, listed at 6-foot-3 and 235 pounds, gives the room a younger option behind Burnett and the returners.
Diaz-Nicolaidis was recruited with a defensive background as well. UNLV described him as a three-star linebacker who moved from Central Catholic in Portland to Bishop Gorman for his senior season. He helped the Gaels finish 11-1 with another state championship. The move into this tight end room gives the freshman a different set of college techniques to learn, alongside older players already accustomed to weekly preparation.
The choices also affect the offensive line. Will Thomas returns after 13 starts, while the group around him is changing. Keeping a tight end beside a tackle can add protection or a blocker for Thomas, but it also removes that player from the initial route. Sending him out gives Arnold or Orji another target while leaving somebody else responsible for the rush. The staff has to select that tradeoff according to the defender and down, rather than assume two big tight ends automatically solve both jobs.
A two-tight-end grouping could let Mullen change the picture without changing players. Burnett might release while Byrnes stays beside the line, or the call could ask both to help the run. Those are possible uses, not an announced division of responsibilities. The competition becomes valuable when the defense cannot identify the coming play simply from which tight end enters. That requires each player to earn trust in more than his most obvious job.
Burnett has the strongest receiving record in the group. Byrnes has the opportunity to expand his role in an offense he knows, while Jefferson, Beasley and Diaz-Nicolaidis compete for work behind them. Mullen needs reliable targets and blockers to replace Gumms and Elksnis.
