LAS VEGAS — Dan Mullen’s first season at UNLV came with some built-in patience. There was a new staff, a new offense, a new way of doing things and a roster everyone was still trying to figure out in real time.
That excuse is mostly gone now.
Mullen has had a full year inside the program. He has seen the Mountain West. He has seen what works with this roster and what does not. He has had time to learn the league, the travel, the weekly matchups and the expectations that come with taking over a program that is no longer happy just being competitive.
That is what makes 2026 different. UNLV is not introducing a staff anymore. It is finding out whether this staff can finish the job.
The Rebels have played in three straight Mountain West championship games and won 10 games in back-to-back seasons. That changes the conversation. This is not a rebuild. It is not a proof-of-concept year. It is not about showing that UNLV can matter in football. The program has already done that.
Now the standard is harsher.
That puts more attention on a staff that looks familiar in some places and very different in others. The biggest offensive change is easy to spot. Mike Sollenne is gone after one season as offensive line coach, leaving for South Florida to become offensive line coach and run game coordinator. Louie Addazio is in after spending the last two seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs. He also has college experience at Texas A&M.
That is a big swing at a position where UNLV cannot afford to be average. The offensive line will shape the whole operation. If that group is good, Mullen can call the game the way he wants. He can lean on tempo. He can run the ball with purpose. He can let the quarterback push the ball downfield. He can use the quarterback run game as a weapon instead of a bailout plan.
If the line is shaky, everything gets harder. The offense becomes more careful. The deep shots are harder to protect. Third downs get longer. Drives become more dependent on the quarterback making something out of nothing. That is how a big offense starts to feel small.
That is why Addazio’s hire might matter more than any other offensive staff move. It is not because offensive line coach is the flashiest title on the staff. It is because that room decides how much of the playbook survives on Saturdays.
Corey Dennis has a different challenge. He remains the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, and that job comes with plenty of pressure in Year 2. Mullen is the offensive headliner, but Dennis is the one working every day with a quarterback room that has to become cleaner and more settled.
Jackson Arnold gives UNLV the most complete path at the position. Alex Orji gives the offense a different kind of physical element. Derek Garcia gives the room a younger developmental option. That is a good problem to have, but it is still a problem that has to be solved. Talent in the quarterback room does not automatically mean the offense has direction.
The quarterback has to know where the answers are. He has to know when to take the easy throw, when to use his legs and when to avoid turning a bad down into a bad drive. If that room is right, UNLV’s offense can look layered. If it is not, the Rebels will spend too much time trying to manufacture rhythm.
The receiver room is another place where the staff has work to do. Del Alexander gives UNLV some continuity, but the passing game is being reshaped after losing Ricky White III and Jaden Bradley. Those two were not just productive players. They gave the offense a personality. They gave quarterbacks answers. They made defensive coordinators account for them before the ball was even snapped.
That is hard to replace with one player. It usually takes a group. UNLV needs a receiver who can win quickly, one who can threaten vertically, one who can handle possession downs and one who can make defenses defend space. The Rebels do not need the new receiver room to look exactly like the old one. They need it to make sense.
That is where Alexander’s job becomes important. The names are one thing. The roles are another. A receiver room can have talent and still feel disjointed if nobody settles into the right job.
Adrian Mayes and Quinton Ganther are part of the same offensive picture. Mayes coaches tight ends and coordinates the run game. Ganther coaches running backs. Those rooms are not going to get the same attention as quarterback or offensive line, but they may help decide how steady the offense feels from week to week.
The tight ends have to make formations harder to read. The backs have to keep the offense out of desperate situations. The run game has to give UNLV something it can trust when the passing game is not clean. That matters in a league race. There are going to be ugly drives and ugly quarters. The good teams have something to lean on anyway.
On defense, the most interesting staff move is a familiar one. Mike Scherer is back at UNLV as linebackers coach after spending 2025 as Purdue’s defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.
That one matters because UNLV has already seen what Scherer can do here. During his previous run with the Rebels, the linebacker room became one of the strengths of the program. Jackson Woodard was the face of that, but the bigger point was how organized that group looked when it was right. The defense played faster because the middle of it made sense.
Scherer does not have to recreate Woodard. That would be the wrong way to look at it. What he has to bring back is the reliability Woodard represented. The communication. The fits. The physicality. The ability to keep the defense from feeling split between the line and the secondary.
That is why linebacker is such a big room in 2026. The defensive front can do its job and the secondary can have talent, but the defense still falls apart if the linebackers are late, hesitant or wrong. They have to clean up runs. They have to handle space. They have to get the defense lined up. They have to keep manageable plays from becoming explosive ones.
Kap Dede steps into a different kind of challenge. He was hired as safeties coach after coaching linebackers at Oklahoma State, and he enters a room that needs to be better. There is no way around that. UNLV’s secondary had too many rough moments in 2025. Too many throws looked comfortable. Too many short gains turned into bigger ones. Too many important downs ended with the back end trying to recover.
That puts Dede and Akeem Davis in a spotlight. Davis still coaches cornerbacks, but his added pass-game defense coordinator title is important. UNLV’s pass defense cannot feel like two separate position rooms. The corners and safeties have to work together. They have to handle motion. They have to pass off routes. They have to tackle. They have to make quarterbacks hold the ball a beat longer than they want to.
The personnel gives them a chance. Jake Pope gives the safety room experience. Denver Harris gives the cornerback room upside. Avery Helm gives the group another cover option. Tre Fulton adds flexibility. Mumu Bin-Wahad can help in the nickel role.
But a secondary is not fixed by names on a depth chart. It is fixed when the communication is cleaner, the tackling is better and quarterbacks stop getting easy answers. That is the standard for Davis and Dede.
It also affects Paul Guenther. He is still the defensive architect, and his second season should come with a better feel for what he has. But defensive coordinators are always tied to what the back end can handle. If the secondary is shaky, pressure becomes a gamble. If the linebackers are not clean, the structure gets stressed. If the front cannot hold up, everything behind it gets exposed.
Ricky Logo’s defensive line room has to be part of the answer, too. UNLV does not need the front to do everything, but it needs enough control there to let the rest of the defense play on time. That is the balance Guenther is trying to find. Better play up front. A steadier linebacker room. A secondary that does not give away cheap yards.
Special teams is another place where the staff changed. Adam Scheier left after one season and is now at Florida State. Mitch Singler, who was a special teams analyst in 2025, has been elevated to special teams assistant.
That move will not get the same attention as the offensive line or secondary changes, but it matters. UNLV is trying to win a conference title. Teams in that position cannot give away field position. They cannot lose hidden yards. They cannot let coverage units become an issue. Scheier’s departure puts pressure on Singler to keep that part of the program steady.
That is really what this season is about for the staff. Not whether the résumés sound good. Not whether the offseason moves look interesting. Whether the right problems actually get fixed.
Addazio has to make the offensive line dependable. Dennis has to get the quarterback room settled. Alexander has to help rebuild the passing game without White and Bradley. Mayes and Ganther have to give the offense a weekly floor. Scherer has to make the linebacker room feel organized again. Dede and Davis have to clean up the secondary. Singler has to make sure special teams does not slip.
That is a long list, but that is where UNLV is now. Winning has made the job bigger. The Rebels have built enough credibility that “progress” is no longer the most interesting word around the program.
The word now is championship.
That does not mean UNLV should be treated like a finished product. It means the staff is going to be judged by a different standard. A year ago, some of this was new. In 2026, it has to be sharper.
The Rebels do not need another offseason that reads well on paper. They need the offensive line to hold up, the quarterback room to play clean, the receivers to find roles, the linebackers to make the defense fit and the secondary to stop giving opponents easy answers.
That is what will decide whether Mullen’s second UNLV team is just talented or actually connected when the season gets hard.