Defensive line coach Ricky Logo has to replace much of UNLV’s rotation while improving a run defense that allowed 5.2 yards per carry and 24 rushing touchdowns in 2025. Returning linemen Lucas Conti and Landen Thomas have preseason all-conference recognition, but the players competing for work around them have far less college experience.
UNLV recorded 66 tackles for loss and 30 sacks across the whole defense, including linebackers and defensive backs. Those totals did not prevent Air Force from rushing for 428 yards or Boise State from gaining 294 in the regular-season meeting.
The Rebels managed one tackle for loss against Air Force and two in that Boise State game. Both opponents moved the ball without often being forced backward.
Dylan Riley’s two long first-half runs in the regular-season Boise State game make the problem harder to dismiss as a bad total accumulated late. His 65-yard gain set up a touchdown pass after UNLV had scored. When the Rebels answered again, Riley ran 49 yards for a touchdown. Boise State kept turning UNLV scoring drives into brief interruptions between its own big plays.
Riley finished with 201 yards on 15 carries. The defense could not make the next rushing attempt routine, even when its offense had just given it a chance to settle the game. Logo’s line is the first part of that resistance. The linebackers and secondary also have responsibility, but a runner repeatedly reaching open space puts every later tackle under more pressure.
Air Force attacked through a different offense and kept requiring UNLV to return to the same work. The Falcons ran 66 times, with six rushing touchdowns. Their fourth-quarter touchdown possessions went 75 yards in 12 plays, 75 in 11 and 75 in another 11. Those were sustained drives as well as scoring plays. The front had to keep preparing for the next snap without getting the offense off the field.
That is why I want the discussion of this line to begin with ordinary running downs. A sack can stop one drive. Controlling the next early-down run can change what the opponent is willing to call, give the linebackers less ground to cover and keep a young reserve from entering after a long series has already worn down the first group. The rebuilt rotation must do that work repeatedly.
Logo must address that problem while replacing four regular contributors. Tunmise Adeleye had 49 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss and six sacks in 13 games. Jalen Lee, Ose Egbase and Waisale Muavesi each played all 14 games. Finding a replacement for Adeleye’s pass rush will not by itself replace the rotation those four supplied.
Defensive coordinator Paul Guenther also loses pressure from behind the line. Defensive backs Aamaris Brown and Jaheem Joseph supplied 3.5 sacks apiece, further reducing the returning share of those 30 team sacks.
Conti and Thomas lead the returning group
Conti played 12 games and started 10, finishing with 22 tackles, four tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks. The 6-foot-5, 290-pound lineman is a Phil Steele preseason second-team All-Mountain West choice and has the group’s most established interior role.
Conti’s responsibility has grown through three distinct seasons. He appeared in two games while preserving his redshirt in 2023 and made one tackle. In 2024, he played 11 games and started three, finishing with nine tackles. Last season brought the 10 starts. UNLV needs that progression to keep producing dependable work, because so many of the players beside him are now at the earlier part of the same process.
Thomas had 13 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and a sack in 11 games. Phil Steele selected him to the preseason third team, one level behind Conti. He returns as an edge option with an opening for more work after Adeleye’s departure.
At 6-foot-3 and 270 pounds, Thomas has an opening for more run-defense work as well as pass rush. His 11 appearances give him more recent game evidence than several of the interior candidates, but 13 tackles are still a modest base for the larger job. After Adeleye’s departure, UNLV is asking for a bigger season from an edge player who has not yet supplied the production it lost.
The end of the Miami game offers a useful example of that connection, even with different players making the stops. After UNLV scored to get within 38-31, Chief Borders and Marsel McDuffie stopped Kenny Tracy for a two-yard loss. McDuffie and Cohen Fuller then combined on a three-yard gain, before McDuffie and Borders stopped Tracy for a one-yard loss on third down. Miami punted after going nowhere in three plays.
The offense took the resulting possession and scored the tying touchdown.
Senior Mohamed Altayeb appeared in seven games and made two assisted tackles. The departures leave him an opening for more work.
Interior snaps are available
Tennessee transfer Herb Gray worked under defensive line coach Rodney Garner but arrives with two college appearances, one tackle and half a tackle for loss. At 6-foot-3 and 290 pounds, he joins the interior competition with much less game experience than the linemen UNLV must replace.
Gray has already gone through a season of preparing without playing. Tennessee’s biography identifies him as a walk-on who redshirted in 2024 without appearing in a game. His two later appearances leave UNLV with a player seeking the sustained college work he did not receive there.
Mo Abbasher, listed at 6-foot-3 and 305 pounds, did not appear last season and is still seeking his first regular college role. Eliah Logo made four tackles in five games as a freshman. At 6-foot-2 and 295 pounds, he has a chance to turn limited appearances into steady rotational work.
Eliah Logo is also the defensive line coach’s son, but his college case begins with his own appearances. He came from Liberty High School in Henderson, where he played for Rich Muraco and was a teammate of Andre Porter and Jae Beasley. His high school career included 48 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss and nine sacks, according to UNLV’s biography.
Returning rush options include Kenji Scanlan, with half a sack in six games; Andre Porter, with half a sack in 13; and outside linebacker Elias Rudolph, with 1.5 in 14. None supplied a full season’s workload as the lead rusher.
That leaves Guenther choosing how much pressure he can expect without sending another defender. The half-sacks from Scanlan and Porter and Rudolph’s 1.5 are contributions to build on, not yet a replacement for the lead rusher. The need to keep somebody in coverage makes developing that production more pressing.
The younger competition includes Bryce Waters, Poe Purcell, Prin Fox, Bryce Robinson, Jordan Covington, Kal-El Togafau and Armand Ausbon. Purcell arrives from Bishop Gorman at a listed 6-foot-3 and 310 pounds.
The bowl finish requires a fairer division of responsibility than simply blaming the front for another loss. Ohio ran for 207 yards, but UNLV also recovered a fumble and intercepted a pass while its offense scored only 10 points. Fuller made five tackles and a sack. The defense supplied some opportunities without controlling the ground game, and the offense failed to turn enough of those opportunities into points. Afterward, Mullen directed the preparation question at himself.
“I didn’t do a good enough job of preparing us for this game,” Mullen said.
Conti’s 10 starts give Logo one established interior contributor. Gray, Abbasher and the younger Logo will compete to turn their limited experience into the regular work Lee, Egbase and Muavesi supplied. Until that rotation develops, replacing Adeleye’s six sacks accounts for only part of what UNLV has lost up front.
