Well it's a good thing that wasn't on TV.
The UNLV Rebels traveled up to Pullman, WA this past Saturday looking for the first win of the season and instead came away with the fourth-worst loss in school history, and that's saying something. UNLV has been a terrible football school since they moved up to the FBS - 3 Bowl Games in 42 seasons, but this kind of stuff just shouldn't happen. The Rebels were supposed to make this a close game and possibly even pull off the upset against the Cougars. That obviously didn't happen.
Instead, Washington State came out and smacked the Rebels in the mouth with a quick two and a half minute drive for a touchdown and didn't slow up. The UNLV offense didn't do much better, getting shutout in the first half. By the time UNLV got a break from the WSU hurry-up offense, it was halftime and the Cougars were up 35-0.
A Field Goal and a Touchdown in the Third Quarter gave WSU a large enough to lead to pull their starters. It didn't matter. The onslaught continued against UNLV in the fourth quarter with the backups in for the Cougars and the first string team still on the field for UNLV. Two more touchdowns for Washington State put the Cougars up 59-0 with 5:42 left in the 4th and it looked as if UNLV was going to get shut-out for the first time in the Bobby Hauck era. Tim Cornett changed that on the very next play, as he returned the kickoff 95 yards for the touchdown to avoid the shut out.
This is painful to write as a UNLV fan. Caleb Herring, after a decent game in his first start last week, was 11/20 for 60 yards and no touchdowns. The rushing game didn't do much better. As a whole, the running game got 98 yards on 34 carries to get an average of 2.9 yards per game on the ground. The average yards per attempt for Caleb Herring? 3.0.
On the other hand, WSU backup QB Marshall Lobbestael was 24/32 for 361 yards and 5 touchdowns and third string quarterback Connor Halliday was 5/6 for 110 yards and 2 touchdowns. Rickey Galvin had 80 yards on 5 carries and a touchdown.
As far as team stats go, it wasn't even close. UNLV was held to 158 yards of total offense while Washington State went for 610. UNLV had 60 passing yards, Washington State had 471. The only thing that was close between the two was time of possession, which still went in favor of the Cougars, 30:53-29:07.
What was I thinking when I said that UNLV could possibly pull off the upset against this team? The Rebels couldn't even stop the secondary team or move the ball inside the red zone. This team dominated UNLV like they were Idaho State, who WSU beat last week 64-27. The only difference was that Idaho State did much better than UNLV in the fact that they were able to score against the Cougars' secondary defense.
To sum this game up in one statement, I would tell you that I turned off my radio following the 5th touchdown pass. Before this game, I was wondering why this game wasn't being broadcast anywhere other than radio, including any live stream on the internet. I thought this would be a good game to watch since it should be close. Now I feel like an idiot for even thinking that, as the Rebels showed they were at FCS level capabilites.
Buckle up Rebel fans, it's gonna be a long season.
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