DENTON, Texas — Before the first quarter ended Saturday, Jackson Arnold had taken two sacks and lost a fumble, Jaylon Glover had put another possession on the ground, and UNLV was down 13-0. Four possessions had produced 36 yards, two punts and two turnovers.
The 44-6 loss at North Texas finished with 301 UNLV yards, 2.5 yards per rush, four giveaways and no touchdown. Arnold completed 18 of 27 passes for 194 yards without an interception, but took four sacks, lost a fumble and was called for intentional grounding after reaching the North Texas 13. Three red-zone trips produced three points.
North Texas combined September’s offensive problems: pressure, sacks, a stalled running game and a receiving corps still replacing Jaden Bradley, Troy Omeire and DaeDae Reynolds. After leaning on heavier personnel at Hawaii, offensive coordinator Corey Dennis saw Jai’Den Thomas held to 37 yards in Denton.
Through three games last season, UNLV scored 106 points and gained 1,287 yards on 177 plays, about 7.3 per snap. This season: 48 points, 1,125 yards and 212 plays, about 5.3 per snap. Thirty-five more plays have produced 162 fewer yards. Last season opened with Idaho State and Sam Houston before UCLA; this year began with Memphis, Hawaii and North Texas. Starting center Austin Boyd also missed the last two games.
UNLV’s 36.3% offensive success rate ranks 122nd nationally in Punt & Rally’s early-season data, and its 2.73 points per scoring opportunity ranks 117th. Success rate accounts for down and distance: six yards on first-and-10 helps a possession, while six on third-and-12 leaves it short. The Rebels average 375 yards per game but too often fail to make the next snap easier.
That becomes more pronounced when the defense can anticipate a pass. UNLV has succeeded on 18% of its passing downs, 128th nationally. Dennis has not reached those situations by abandoning the run. Punt & Rally’s figures through those three games listed a 52% run rate and a 45% pass rate. The problem has come after something changes a possession. A sack, holding penalty, unsuccessful run or incompletion puts the offense behind schedule, and UNLV has struggled to recover.
Memphis provided the first example. PFF charged UNLV’s blockers with 21 pressures in the opener, including six sacks, four quarterback hits and 11 hurries. Amare Taase and Will Thomas combined to allow 11 pressures and four sacks, with additional losses elsewhere along the line. Arnold completed 17 of 21 passes for 203 yards before halftime while UNLV built a 14-7 lead, and Memphis did not sack him once during those two quarters. All six sacks came after halftime, including four in the fourth quarter, when the game demanded more from UNLV’s dropback passing game.
Glover’s 44-yard run to the Memphis 27 preceded a six-yard sack. He gained nothing on second-and-16, leaving third-and-16. One negative play had erased the favorable situation created by UNLV’s longest designed run of the game.
Hawaii allowed UNLV to avoid that game. The Rebels ran 43 times and attempted 18 passes, Thomas carried 20 times for 143 yards and Arnold added 89 net rushing yards and two touchdowns. UNLV finished with 248 rushing yards. PFF recorded Arnold under pressure on seven of 24 dropbacks, with 17 kept clean. Its blocking report charged UNLV’s blockers with four pressures, a separate measure. Hawaii recorded one official sack. Two- and three-tight-end personnel gave UNLV additional bodies around the formation without eliminating play action, while Thomas and Arnold forced Hawaii to account for both in the run game.
North Texas held Thomas without a run longer than eight yards. Two early turnovers created a 13-0 deficit. After failing to sack Indiana quarterback Josh Hoover a week earlier, the Mean Green sacked Arnold on his opening possession, strip-sacked him on the next and finished with four.
Boyd’s absence remained part of the offensive-line picture, but most of Saturday’s pressure did not come through center. Griffin Scroggs played 66 snaps there and BJ Tolo took another 10 in PFF’s chart. Mullen also identified a missed running-back block and Arnold holding the ball. The staff has to address each of those failures.
The line deserves a significant share of the responsibility for UNLV’s 11 sacks through three games, but Arnold cannot be removed from it. He was sacked 34 times on 246 pass attempts at Oklahoma in 2024, 30 times on 215 attempts at Auburn last season and 11 times on 82 attempts through three games at UNLV. Using pass attempts plus sacks as a simple denominator, with scrambles excluded, Arnold was sacked on 12.1% of those opportunities at Oklahoma, 12.2% at Auburn and 11.8% so far at UNLV.
That does not make all 75 sacks Arnold’s fault. Oklahoma and Auburn had protection problems too. His pressure-to-sack rate exceeded one in four in his final Oklahoma season and increased early at Auburn. UNLV has to improve its blocking and release timing.
Arnold has shown that pressure itself does not automatically ruin the play. Against Memphis, he completed six of seven passes for 102 yards and both of his touchdowns when the Tigers blitzed, with the ball coming out in an average of 2.14 seconds. When an additional rusher created an immediate coverage answer, Arnold found it. The more difficult snaps have come when the first picture changes and the pocket begins to deteriorate. North Texas produced several of those without Arnold throwing an interception. A sack ended the opening possession, Davion Rhodes’ strip-sack ended the next one and an intentional-grounding penalty under pressure damaged a third-quarter red-zone possession.
The comparison with former UNLV quarterback Anthony Colandrea shows another part of what has disappeared. Colandrea completed 49 of 65 passes for 647 yards, six touchdowns and one interception through three games last season. Arnold is 51 of 82 for 601 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Only 46 passing yards separate them, but Arnold has needed 17 additional attempts and produced four fewer touchdowns. Colandrea averaged 9.95 yards per attempt through three games. Arnold is at 7.33. UNLV allowed six sacks through the same point last season compared with 11 now.
Arnold has three rushing touchdowns and a 54-yard scramble against Memphis. Colandrea faced an easier opening schedule, then finished 2025 with 3,459 passing yards and 23 touchdowns, plus 649 rushing yards and 10 scores. Those full-season totals show the production UNLV eventually received; September’s comparison cannot establish how Arnold will finish.
Arnold attempted all 55 passes credited to a UNLV quarterback through two games and logged 37 official rushing attempts, including sacks and scrambles. Alex Orji did not receive significant work until North Texas had decided the result. He ran twice for 32 yards and completed 1 of 5 passes with an interception.
Thomas has not disappeared because of a lack of carries either. He had 32 attempts for 273 yards and four touchdowns through three games last season. This year he has 42 carries for 224 yards and one score. Ten additional attempts have produced 49 fewer yards, and his average has fallen from 8.5 yards per carry to 5.3. Thomas ran for 1,036 yards and 12 touchdowns on 148 attempts last season, averaging seven yards per rush. He produced 147 yards and three touchdowns on 10 carries against Idaho State and 103 yards with four touchdowns on 11 attempts at Reno. His value came from how much individual touches could produce, not from requiring 20 carries every week.
Thomas ran for 44 yards on 12 attempts against Memphis, 143 on 20 at Hawaii and 37 on 10 at North Texas. His 50-yard touchdown at Hawaii left 93 yards on the other 19 attempts. UNLV needs more of those touches to extend possessions.
The receiving turnover has changed what Dennis can ask from the passing game as well. Bradley, Omeire and Reynolds combined for 122 receptions, 1,916 yards and 14 touchdowns last season, accounting for roughly 55% of UNLV’s receiving yards and 58% of its receiving touchdowns. None is on the roster now. UNLV’s estimated average target traveled 10.1 yards downfield last season before falling to 8.5 through the first two games this year, while estimated yards after catch dropped from 5.5 per completion to 3.2.
Arnold showed against Memphis that the deeper passing game is available when he gets time, producing 216 of his 291 passing yards on throws at least 10 yards downfield. Hawaii produced 116 passing yards, but 91 came on three completions. Against North Texas, Taz Reddicks caught five passes for 75 yards, including a 35-yard gain, before losing a fumble near the goal line. He was still UNLV’s most productive receiver after not starting, and the Rebels have gone two consecutive games without a receiving touchdown.
The offensive line changed around those skill positions too. Only Will Thomas and Boyd remained from the early 2025 group in the starting line UNLV used against Memphis, and Boyd had moved to center before suffering his ankle injury in the opener. Coach Dan Mullen has pointed to the communication UNLV lost without Boyd, particularly the calls he handled in the middle of the line. Scroggs and Tolo have taken those snaps since. North Texas also showed the limits of using Boyd’s absence as the explanation when the largest pressure totals came from the tackles.
The offense’s mistakes have reached beyond its own scoring total. North Texas began each of its first three possessions on UNLV’s side of the field, and Mullen thought the defense handled those circumstances reasonably well early. “I thought our guys were put in a bunch of tough situations in the first half, played fairly well,” he said afterward. The defense eventually opened the third quarter by allowing consecutive 75-yard touchdown drives, but the offense and special teams had already forced it to defend short fields throughout the opening quarter.
Mullen did not separate his staff from the players afterward. “Just bad football all around, and when you have bad football, that’s bad coaching,” he said. “Really poorly coached in all three phases. That’s on us.”
The 301 yards in Denton probably describe UNLV’s offensive problem better than six points alone. The Rebels reached the North Texas 1 on a 15-play drive before halftime and scored nothing. Reddicks’ 35-yard catch helped put UNLV into the red zone to begin the second half before intentional grounding under pressure left Ramon Villela kicking a field goal. Another drive reached the North Texas 4 before Reddicks fumbled. Thomas had an 18-yard run to the 3 erased by holding. UNLV moved the football often enough to create opportunities and repeatedly failed on the snaps that decided whether those drives became touchdowns.
The work belongs to more than the quarterback. Dennis and Mullen have to give Arnold calls he trusts, the line has to keep them available and the receivers have to create more after winning a route. Thomas cannot be the only way out when the passing game stalls.
“Offense never got it going,” Mullen said. “So we got a lot of things to fix.”
