LAS VEGAS — UNLV’s cornerback room looks much different entering the 2026 season, even with many of the same players back. A year ago, the Rebels were trying to put together a secondary filled with transfers and players learning Paul Guenther’s defense for the first time. This fall, the experience is already there, the terminology is familiar, the expectations have been established and several players who dealt with injuries last season are healthy again.
For UNLV’s cornerbacks coach, all of that comes back to one word: finish. That has been the emphasis since the end of last season, when the staff looked at what kept UNLV from taking another step after reaching the Mountain West championship game.
“That has been the emphasis,” he said. “When we had that exit meeting last year, and when we approached this year, we knew from the top down that that was one thing that we wanted to do, finish. And that’s in the classroom, that’s in the weight room, that’s in the film room and that’s on Saturdays.”
The message carries directly into the secondary. UNLV gave up explosive plays at different points last season, and the staff has spent camp emphasizing eye discipline, execution and finishing the play once the ball is in the air.
“We put our eyes in the right spot and we execute,” the cornerbacks coach said. “And we finish. We burn our eyes on our work and we know what they’re about to try to do to us. Once they give us what we were expecting, we finish.”
Finishing also goes beyond one coverage or one play. The staff has tried to build it into everything the defensive backs do, from meetings and the weight room to how they respond late in practice. The message comes from what UNLV has already experienced as a program. The Rebels have been in championship situations. The next step is making sure getting there is no longer enough.
“We gotta go win the whole thing,” the cornerbacks coach said. “It ain’t enough to just get there. It ain’t enough to just show up. The chip is that we’ve been there, but we just gotta go finish.”
That approach is easier to install with a room that no longer has to start over. UNLV has several veteran defensive backs who have already played in the system, including Denver Harris, Quandarius Keys and others who understand Guenther’s defense. The staff believes that experience allows the secondary to play faster because players are no longer spending as much time figuring out where they are supposed to be.
“They know game,” the cornerbacks coach said. “They know the game, they know schematics, they know scheme, they know the structure of the defense. But more importantly, they know what it takes to be a good unit, and that’s together.”
That continuity has changed what UNLV can do during camp. Last year, the staff was trying to establish expectations while teaching the defense to a group that included several new players. This year, the older players already know what those expectations look like and are being asked to carry them to the rest of the room.
“I think when you got some guys that have been here, I think you don’t have to reset the culture,” the cornerbacks coach said. “You don’t have to reset the expectation. I think the expectation has been established.”
The leadership does not come from one personality. Harris brings energy, Keys stays more even-keeled and other veterans provide calmness when the room needs it. The staff has leaned into those differences instead of asking everyone to lead the same way.
“Leadership is influence,” the cornerbacks coach said. “I got a lot of older guys, man, that have influence in different ways.”
He described one veteran as the calm presence in the room, Harris as the player who can bring the energy up and Keys as someone who rarely gets too high or too low. Having different personalities has given the room multiple ways to respond depending on what is needed during a practice or game.
That experience is also showing up in how comfortable the players are in Guenther’s defense. One returning corner said the biggest difference from last season is simply how much faster everything feels after another year in the scheme. The communication is better, the players know each other better and there are fewer moments where the secondary is trying to learn something for the first time.
“Last year it was a great group, I love them guys, but I feel like we’re more comfortable in the schemes,” he said. “It was a lot of guys with a lot of transfers. Second year in the scheme, so I feel like everything’s just faster, everything is better.”
That comfort becomes important when UNLV starts seeing motion, shifts and different formations at full speed. The defensive backs believe another year in the system has allowed them to react instead of hesitate, something that could become important in trying to limit the explosive plays that hurt the defense at times last season.
Health is another part of the equation. Mumu Bin-Wahad and Harris both dealt with issues that kept them from having the seasons they wanted a year ago, and the message to the veterans now has been to prepare and practice as if every opportunity could be the last one.
“I tell them to go out and play like it’s their last snap each and every day,” the cornerbacks coach said. “Prepare like it’s their last snap each and every day. And when they’re out there, go finish like it’s their last opportunity to finish every single day.”
Avery Helm understands that better than most. His path to UNLV included multiple injuries, including a second torn ACL while he was at TCU and another lingering issue that eventually required surgery. His connection with Dan Mullen went back to Florida, where Mullen recruited him and started him as a sophomore.
When Helm realized he had another year available, he reached back out to Mullen through Instagram.
“My mom was actually like, ‘Man, you talk to Coach?’” Helm said. “I’m like, ‘No.’ So I texted him on Instagram. He texted me right back. I said, ‘Coach, I got another year.’ He got me on the flight three days later.”
For Helm, the relationship with Mullen included trust that had already been built through his first major injury. He said Mullen knew what he was getting because he had already seen how Helm responded while coming back from a torn ACL.
“This is the second time he took me coming off of a torn ACL,” Helm said. “So he know I’m not gonna quit. He know I’m gonna show up every day and be the best I can be. So he trusts me like I trust him.”
Getting healthy again has meant more than simply getting back on the field. Helm said he recently called his mother while driving to practice and became emotional talking about what it felt like to finally have football back without the injury questions hanging over him.
“I was crying in the car and I was just like, ‘I got my flame back,’” Helm said. “I feel like I love ball. It’s like being born again.”
Helm has never lacked confidence. When asked what he brings to the cornerback position, he did not spend much time qualifying the answer.
“Everything,” he said. “Everything you want in a corner, I got it.”
Speed has always been part of it. Helm said he won the Junior Olympics when he was around 11 or 12 and won multiple indoor national championships while competing in track. Football eventually became his focus, but the speed remained part of his game.
The injuries changed other parts of him. Helm said being unable to play forced him to become more willing to pour into teammates and help younger players from the sideline. Instead of judging his impact only by what he could do on the field, he learned how to help teammates through what he saw.
“It taught me to open up and pour into others more,” Helm said. “Me not being able to be on the grass but me still being able to affect the game from pouring into other people and showing them what I see, telling them how I would play it, telling them how I would feel in that moment.”
Helm said that experience also helped him become more emotionally consistent. After everything he has gone through, he said one of his biggest areas of growth has been learning not to get too high or too low and becoming the same player and teammate every day.
That gives UNLV another veteran presence in a room that already has more experience than it did a year ago, and Laterrance Welch has added another one since returning to practice.
Welch led UNLV in interceptions last season, and his return did not create resentment among players fighting for snaps. One returning corner described the reaction much differently.
“We’re stacked now,” he said. “We got a lot of guys that can play, so we know we got a lot of playmakers that we can have in the secondary. So that’s a great add.”
The competition for playing time is still there. Harris, Keys, Bin-Wahad, Helm, Welch and the rest of the room are all trying to earn snaps, but the players have repeatedly described the competition as something that is pushing the group instead of dividing it.
That is where the continuity matters. The secondary is not trying to figure out whether it has enough players. It is trying to determine which combinations give UNLV the best chance to keep explosive plays from turning into touchdowns and get the ball back to the offense.
The competition is not limited to the defensive side of the ball. The cornerbacks have spent camp going against a UNLV offense that gives them plenty to process, with Mullen’s scheme forcing the secondary to deal with different formations, motions and ways of creating space.
The cornerbacks coach also pointed to the wide receivers and tight ends as part of what has made camp productive for the secondary. He credited the offensive staff with putting those players in positions that force the defensive backs to communicate and adjust, while the receivers continue to challenge them with speed and different skill sets.
One returning corner said that work has helped prepare the secondary for what it expects to see once the season begins. Going against Mullen’s offense every day gives the group a chance to see many of the concepts and looks that opponents will eventually try to use against them.
The cornerbacks coach said that competition extends beyond the players. Guenther, Mullen and the rest of the staff are also constantly trying to find ways to give their groups an advantage.
“You see those players out there competing, but I promise you, man, us coaches, we up there, we compete trying to give our guys the best edge to go out on the field and be successful,” he said.
UNLV is now a little more than two weeks away from putting the secondary on the field in a game that counts. The experience is there, several players who battled injuries are healthy again, Welch is back, Helm has another chance to play for Mullen and the returning players are in their second year in Guenther’s defense.
The difference from last fall is that the group already knows what is expected. UNLV does not have to spend camp creating an identity for the cornerbacks from scratch. The veterans have been through the system, they have been through games together and they have been through a season that ended without accomplishing what they wanted.
Now the emphasis is making sure the next opportunity ends differently.
“Finish, finish, finish,” the cornerbacks coach said. “In everything that you do, go finish.”