LAS VEGAS — UNLV spent much of fall camp installing schemes, evaluating personnel and giving players opportunities to earn spots in the rotation. With the season opener against Memphis getting closer, Dan Mullen is beginning to change what the Rebels are being asked to handle.
Sunday’s practice included two-minute work, special teams situations, attempts to draw the defense offside and different clock scenarios designed to force players to think beyond simply executing the play call. For Mullen, those are situations a team might rarely encounter until one of them suddenly determines a game.
“You don’t need it until you need it, right?” Mullen said. “And then when you need it, it’s the most important play of the game in every one of those situations that we went through today.”
Mullen said UNLV had already installed portions of its situational work earlier in camp before expanding it Sunday. The goal is to expose players to as many possibilities as possible before they encounter them with a game on the line.
“I just want to make sure our guys are ready for whatever happens,” Mullen said. “Everything that can occur during the game, I want to make sure we’re prepared for it.”
The change in practice also reflects where UNLV is in its evaluation process. Mullen is still determining which players have earned game reps, but established players no longer need the same amount of work as those fighting their way into the rotation.
Jai’Den “Jet” Thomas is one example. Mullen already knows what the returning running back can do in a game, so his work now is more about preparing for the season than proving he belongs on the field.
“I don’t need to see Jet run a lot,” Mullen said. “I’ve seen him run a lot on a game day. I gotta get him game ready. He doesn’t have to go prove to earn his reps.”
Other players still do. Mullen’s attention has started shifting toward how many players at each position he trusts enough to use and how those pieces will fit into a rotation once the season begins.
“How many linebackers are ready to go into a game?” Mullen said. “How many safeties do we have? What’s our corner rotation? If we have like four starters at a position, that’s good. How are we gonna rotate those guys? We should be able to stay really fresh during the course of the game.”
Wide receiver remains one of the positions where that evaluation could continue into the season. Mullen said UNLV lost more production there than anywhere else on the roster, and several players in the room have not handled significant college game reps.
“Our wideouts, that’s probably the position we lost the most production at, is wide receiver,” Mullen said. “We’ll probably play a lot of receivers in the first game. I would expect us to do that.”
That rotation may last until Mullen sees how the group responds when the games count. Practice can show who understands the offense and consistently executes assignments, but Mullen said some players look different once they are playing in front of a crowd with the result attached.
“You might look like one thing in practice and look something differently in game,” Mullen said. “We gotta have another guy ready to get in there. We’ll see on game day when the real lights come out.”
Sunday’s situational work tested more than the physical part of playing receiver. Mullen repeatedly emphasized understanding the clock, down and distance and what the offense actually needs from a play.
A receiver might need to get out of bounds in one situation but only reach the first-down marker in another. On the final play of a game, a quarterback may need to throw the ball up even if the receiver appears covered because taking a sack ends the game anyway. Mullen wants those decisions made before the ball is snapped rather than learned after a mistake.
“I think it’s such a huge part for some of the guys of just making sure you understand the exact situation that you’re in and what the play is needed at that time,” Mullen said. “Not just, ‘I’m gonna go try to run and make something happen.’ Know your situation.”
The same transition is beginning at quarterback. Mullen did not provide another major update on the competition between Jackson Arnold and Alex Orji, joking instead that quarterbacks should not expect much public praise from him even after a strong day.
“If you want compliments on quarterbacks, I’m the wrong guy to come to on that one right there,” Mullen said.
He does believe the position is becoming more comfortable. The next challenge is taking everything UNLV installed throughout camp and applying it to Memphis.
For weeks, the Rebels practiced their offense against Paul Guenther’s defense and their defense against Mullen’s offense. Players became familiar with the personnel across from them, the way particular receivers run routes and the rhythm of the schemes they see every day.
Memphis changes that.
“Our defense has played against the same offense for a long time,” Mullen said. “They’re gonna play a very different offense in two weeks in Memphis. Our offense has played against the same rhythm, same players. ‘Hey, I know how this guy runs a route.’ They’ve never gone against the Memphis guys.”
UNLV has already done much of its advance work on the Tigers, including studying both quarterbacks Memphis could use. Charles Huff has not announced whether Air Noland or Marcus Stokes will start, but Mullen said the Rebels studied both during the spring and summer.
He does not expect Memphis to give UNLV any additional help.
“I wouldn’t,” Mullen said when asked about the Tigers not announcing a starter. “If they don’t have to, why would you?”
Mullen said UNLV will prepare for both and adjust once the game begins.
“To me, whoever starts, starts, and go figure out what they’ll do,” Mullen said.
The larger challenge is that this version of Memphis has never played together. Huff is entering his first season with the Tigers, and more than 70 newcomers joined the program during the offseason. Mullen compared the situation to what UNLV faced before his first season.
“They’re like us last year,” Mullen said. “We probably had 70 new guys last year on our team. So they’re probably really in the same situation we were in this time last year.”
There is film on Memphis’ coaches from previous stops and film on individual players from other programs. There is no game film showing exactly how all of those pieces will look together.
That leaves UNLV with only so much it can prepare for before Aug. 29.
“This team hasn’t been together and played, so a lot of your focus has to be on yourself in Game 1,” Mullen said.
UNLV does have one form of continuity Memphis does not. Mullen returns much of the same coaching staff from last season, which he believes should make communication easier once coaches are on the headset and making adjustments during a game.
“We might have a lot of new faces in players, but we have a lot of coaches back,” Mullen said. “When you have coaches that have been around each other before, I think that there’s a lot more comfort within the communication factor with how game days go run. That’s at least one stress we can take off our plate.”
The next step is putting that experience into a Memphis-specific plan. Mullen said UNLV is moving away from simply running its base offense against its own defense and toward installing the checks and calls the staff expects to need in the opener.
“Let’s implement it all now into a specific game plan with specific checks against what we expect Memphis to do,” Mullen said. “That’s a big difference in the quarterback play, and we gotta make sure we start making that transition this week.”
Fall camp is not over. Players are still earning reps, Mullen is still working through rotations and the receiver group may need actual games before UNLV knows exactly what it has.
The difference now is that the work has Memphis attached to it. The checks, clock situations and personnel decisions are starting to be made with Aug. 29 in mind.