LAS VEGAS — The expectation for UNLV does not have to change simply because the first three games did.
The College Football Playoff conversation has changed. There is no reason to pretend otherwise after losses to Memphis and North Texas left UNLV 1-2 entering its first bye week. The Rebels were discussed throughout the offseason as one of the Group of Six teams capable of making a national run, then opened by losing two of their first three games and scored only six points in a 44-6 loss at North Texas. Whatever path existed nationally has become considerably narrower. The Mountain West path has not.
UNLV is 1-0 in conference play after beating Hawai‘i, with seven league games remaining. That should be the standard for the rest of 2026. Not simply reaching six wins. Not recovering enough from September to get into another bowl game. UNLV has spent three seasons establishing a different baseline. Barry Odom took the Rebels to consecutive Mountain West championship games and won 11 games in 2024. Mullen followed with 10 wins and another trip to the title game in his first season. A program that has played for the conference championship three straight years should still expect to be part of that race when November arrives.
The first three games have made getting there harder. UNLV has scored 48 points in 37 possessions and has not found an offensive identity that has held from one opponent to the next. Memphis exposed the pass protection after halftime. Hawai‘i allowed the Rebels to lean into heavier personnel and the run, producing 248 rushing yards in a 21-6 win. North Texas took that away, held UNLV to 98 rushing yards, forced four turnovers and sacked Jackson Arnold four times. The defense went from keeping Hawai‘i out of the end zone to a performance in Denton in which Mullen said his staff counted 29 missed tackles.
Mullen has spent the bye acknowledging that inconsistency rather than treating North Texas as an isolated bad afternoon. He said the staff now has three games of evidence showing what UNLV does well, what it does poorly and how those strengths and weaknesses hold up against other teams rather than its own offense and defense in practice.
“We now at least have an idea a little bit where we are, who we are as a team,” Mullen said. “We as coaches now, we’ve got to see where we’re making sure that we are getting the most out of the guys, where we need to execute better. Are we making sure we’re asking guys to do what they do well and that we’ve coached the right things?”
Seven of UNLV’s final nine games count in the Mountain West standings, beginning after the Rebels return from the bye Sept. 26 at Akron. The open week gives Mullen time to work through problems that cannot keep following UNLV deeper into conference play.
Akron is the first measurement of whether the break changed anything. Mullen has talked about extending individual periods, returning to fundamentals and reconsidering how the roster is being used. The staff is learning what Arnold is most comfortable running. Mullen wants Alex Orji involved more. The receivers have been challenged to block better and win more one-on-one opportunities. After North Texas, Mullen challenged the entire team to find more toughness and an edge.
None of it has to be completely solved at Akron. The same problems cannot keep showing up every week.
“We can control our performance and are we getting better from one week to the next,” Mullen said. “I think that’s what’s critical.”
The offense will determine much of what is still possible. Mullen was hired with a reputation built on quarterbacks and offense, and that side of the ball was supposed to provide stability while the defense improved. Instead, UNLV is averaging 16 points through three games. Arnold has produced good stretches, particularly before halftime against Memphis and as a runner at Hawai‘i, but the passing game has struggled once protection breaks down and the Rebels reach obvious passing situations.
Mullen said this week that three games have given him a better understanding of what Arnold is comfortable executing.
“I might like a play, but if he’s not comfortable running it, it really doesn’t matter what I like,” Mullen said. “I’m standing on the sidelines. No one’s coming to hit me and I don’t have to throw a ball.”
By October, UNLV should know what its quarterback does well and have an offense built around it. The Rebels can look different from last season. Arnold can be different from Anthony Colandrea. What they need is something dependable enough to survive when an opponent takes away the first option.
Orji fits only if the staff makes his role real. Mullen said Tuesday that he wants to get him onto the field more after Orji received little meaningful work through the first three games. Over the remaining nine, those packages either become part of the offense or stop existing mostly as an idea discussed outside of games.
North Texas has to become the defensive exception rather than the start of a trend. UNLV showed enough against Memphis and Hawai‘i to suggest that side of the ball could improve from last season, particularly when the Rebels tackled well and kept ordinary gains from becoming explosive plays. Denton erased much of that progress in one afternoon. North Texas rushed for 183 yards, opened the second half with consecutive 75-yard touchdown drives and repeatedly added yards after initial contact. Mullen said one play included seven missed tackles.
The standard for the defense is not domination. It is dependability. UNLV needs a unit capable of keeping games under control often enough that the offense is not playing a race to 35 every Saturday. A team trying to remain in the Mountain West race cannot alternate between holding an opponent without a touchdown and missing 29 tackles a week later.
The situational mistakes should disappear with the inconsistency. UNLV has already had two first halves in which scoring opportunities turned into clock-management problems. Against Memphis, the Rebels reached the 15 with more than a minute left and all three timeouts before eventually attempting a field goal as time expired. At North Texas, UNLV reached first-and-goal from the 7 with 26 seconds remaining and one timeout, spiked the ball, ran on second down, used its final timeout and completed a third-down pass short of the goal line before Jaylon Glover was stopped at the 1 on the final snap.
Mullen said three players ran the wrong play on that last snap and acknowledged the coaching had to be better. Those sequences did not decide either loss by themselves. They are still the type of repeated mistakes an experienced staff should eliminate. If UNLV is playing meaningful conference games in November, those possessions cannot still be part of the weekly explanation.
The remaining schedule gives UNLV room to change how September is remembered. Cal offers another nonconference measuring stick after Akron. North Dakota State and Air Force follow before the Rebels’ second bye. Northern Illinois and Wyoming come to Allegiant Stadium before UNLV travels to New Mexico and San Jose State and returns home to close the regular season against UNR.
By then, the question should be easy to answer.
Is UNLV genuinely part of the Mountain West championship race because of how it has played, or is it technically alive because the standings have not eliminated it yet?
That is a higher standard than bowl eligibility because UNLV created it. Three straight championship-game appearances changed what six wins means. Mullen inherited that expectation and reinforced it when he talked about winning the conference and taking the program another step forward.
A 1-2 September does not end that possibility. It makes the next nine games the test of whether Mullen’s second team can still meet it.
The playoff conversation has faded.
The expectation to play meaningful football in November should not.