LAS VEGAS — UNLV has spent the last three seasons getting close enough to the College Football Playoff conversation to understand what is still missing. Brett McMurphy thinks the Rebels finally get there in 2026.
The On3 national reporter released his first bowl projections of the season Monday and placed UNLV in the 12-team playoff field, traveling to Texas Tech for a first-round game in Lubbock. McMurphy also projected Oklahoma at Texas, Washington at Miami and BYU at Indiana in the other first-round campus games.
It is a preseason projection, and nobody has earned anything yet. But UNLV being included at all says something about where the program is entering Dan Mullen’s second season.
The Rebels have won 30 games over the last three years and reached three consecutive Mountain West championship games. Every one of those seasons ended without the conference title that would have strengthened UNLV’s path toward the playoff. McMurphy’s projection assumes that part finally changes.
UNLV has already proven it can survive a regular season. It went 11-3 in 2024, earned the first final Associated Press ranking in program history and came back with 10 more wins during Mullen’s first season. What the Rebels have not done is finish the conference race.
Boise State beat UNLV in each of the last three Mountain West championship games before leaving for the Pac-12. That removes the program that has repeatedly stood between UNLV and the trophy, but it does not automatically hand the Rebels anything. Someone still has to win the new Mountain West, and McMurphy is betting on UNLV.
His projection does not list exact seeds in the public summary, but sending the Rebels on the road in the first round places them somewhere among the lower four seeds in the field, while Texas Tech would be among the teams hosting a first-round game.
That is considerably different from simply picking UNLV to have another good season. The Rebels would have to win enough games to remain nationally relevant, navigate the Mountain West and put themselves ahead of the other conference champions competing for playoff access.
There is also more uncertainty on the roster than the projection might suggest. UNLV returns 32 lettermen and seven starters from last season, but much of the turnover sits at positions that determine what the offense becomes. Anthony Colandrea is gone. Jackson Arnold and Alex Orji are expected to play at quarterback. Austin Boyd has moved to center, and the Rebels replaced most of the receiving production around Taeshaun Lyons.
That makes McMurphy’s projection partly a bet on Mullen doing this again. UNLV has changed coaches, quarterbacks and important pieces of the roster throughout its three-year run without allowing the win total to collapse. The names have changed faster than the expectations.
Now the expectation has reached the playoff.
Texas Tech enters from a different place. The Red Raiders won a school-record 12 games last season, captured the Big 12 championship and reached the College Football Playoff for the first time. They begin 2026 No. 12 in the AP preseason poll, and McMurphy projects them back into the field with a home game.
UNLV is being asked to make a larger jump. The Rebels begin outside the AP Top 25 and received votes in both major preseason polls. Their national case is built more on what the program has done over three seasons than what this particular roster has already proven.
That is why Saturday matters. Memphis also enters the season receiving votes and is expected to compete for the American Conference championship. If both programs remain in their respective conference races into November, the result of their opener could become part of the comparison between teams fighting for the same playoff access.
A win over Memphis will not put UNLV in the playoff, and a loss will not eliminate the Rebels. But this is where the résumé starts.
Mullen said this week that Saturday’s result could become more important later in the season if both teams remain in contention. “I’m sure in November, the winner, you might not feel it after this game, but there’s going to be a lot of discussion about this game as the season goes on,” Mullen said.
That is what makes McMurphy’s projection more interesting than the matchup with Texas Tech itself. UNLV has spent three seasons building toward the point where somebody can reasonably put the Rebels in a preseason playoff bracket without it looking out of place.
McMurphy has UNLV near the end of the path, but the Rebels still have to start walking it Saturday.
