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The UNLV Rebels football program is a college football team that represents the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (commonly known as "UNLV"). The team is currently a member of the Mountain West Conference, which is a Division I Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA). The program which began in 1968, is in the process of searching for a head coach after Mike Sanford was dismissed as of the end of the 2009 seasons. The team's home games are played at Sam Boyd Stadium in Whitney, Nevada.
[edit] History[edit] The early yearsIn 1967, Nevada Southern University announced that it would be fielding a collegiate football program in its department of athletics, starting in 1968 and announced that the team would be a Division II Independent and that Bill Ireland as the programs first head coach . The Rebels played their first game of their inaugural season on September 14, 1968 against the St. Mary's Gaels at Cashman Field in Las Vegas. The Rebels won the game, defeating the Gaels 27–20 in front of 8,000 fans. The Rebels would remain undefeated until the last game of the season, losing to Cal Lutheran Kingsmen, 17–13, as the Rebels finished their inaugural campaign 8-1. The following year, the Rebels played their first game against in-state rival Nevada, losing to the Wolf Pack 30–28. UNLV would gain their revenge, defeating UNR the following year, 42–30, in the first year that the Fremont Cannon was awarded. On September 25, 1971, the Rebels played their first game against a Division I school, when they played Utah State of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA), ultimately losing 27–7. Also in 1971, the Rebels opened their new home, Las Vegas Stadium opening the doors on October 23 against Weber State, losing 30–17. At the end of the 1972 season with a disappointing 1-10 record, Coach Ireland announced he was stepping down, leaving the Rebels with a 26-23-1 record. Ireland was replaced by Ron Meyer before the start of the 1973 season and Meyer led the Rebels back to powerhouse status with an 8-3 record, including the Rebels first victory over a major college opponent, thrashing Marshall 31–9. The Rebels continued their strong campaign, breaking the national Division II top-10 and announcing their first All-American, running back Mike Thomas, who ran for the Division II national rushing title with 1,741 and setting nine school records in the process. The Rebels success continued into 1974 as they had their only undefeated season in school history, finishing 11-0 and ranking second in the national Division II polls, the highest any Rebels football team has ever placed. The Rebels would embark on their first post-season journey in a national quarterfinal against Alcorn State, defeating the Braves 35–22 in Las Vegas. The Rebels memorable season would come to a close at the national semifinals in the Grantland Rice Bowl, losing to Delaware 49–11 ending the Rebels closest bid for a national title in collegiate football. Coach Meyer would eventually leave the Rebels in 1976 to take the head coaching position at collegiate powerhouse, Southern Methodist University. [edit] The move to Division IFormer Boise State coach, Tony Knap, took over the Rebels in 1976, after Ron Meyer's departure. Knap was able to continue the Rebels prior success under Meyer, with a 9-3 record, a ranking of 7th in the nation, and a birth in the Division II playoffs, ultimately losing to Akron 27–6 in the national quarterfinals. After ten years as a Division II independent, the program made the jump to the Division I level in 1978, but remaining independent of any conference affiliation. On September 9, the Rebels played their first game as a Division I school, losing to Washington State 34–7. The Rebels would come back from that loss, to defeat their first major college opponent away from Las Vegas, with a 33–6 victory over Colorado State in Fort Collins. At the end of the season, the Rebels would embark on a trip to Yokohama, Japan to compete against college football powerhouse Brigham Young, losing 28–24. Even with the hard end to the season, the Rebels still produce a memorable year, going 7-4 in the first campaign at the Division I level. The 1981 season proved to be the last in Knap's tenure at UNLV, as he retired from coaching after a year of accomplishments including the Rebel's first appearance ABC's Regional Game of the Week (a 45–21 loss at Wyoming), a 45–41 upset of 8th-ranked BYU in Provo, Utah, and securing the programs 100th win (27–20 at Texas-El Paso). 1982 would be a big year in UNLV football history as the program hired its fourth head coach, Harvey Hyde and the Rebels finally became affiliated with a college athletic conference when it joined the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA). The Rebels first PCAA game was a 29–27 loss to Pacific on October 2. It would take the entire season before the Rebels won their first conference game, which was a 42–23 victory against Cal-State Fullerton on November 27. The Rebels would win their first conference championship in 1984 as the Randall Cunningham-led Rebels would go 11-2 in the regular season, including the program's first trip to a bowl game, a 30–13 victory over Toledo in the California Bowl in Fresno, California. Hyde would step down after the 1985 season and a 5-5-1 record and the discovery that several players on the 1984 Rebels were ineligible. The Rebels were forced to forfeit their entire 1984 season, including the California Bowl. Wayne Nunnely would be hired as the program's fifth head coach on September 20, 1986 and would coach the Rebels to a 17–7 victory over Wisconsin in front of a the first sellout in Silver Bowl Stadium history, a then record 32,207 fans. One of Nunnely's key players was Elbert "Ickey" Woods, who would become the first Rebel and PCAA running back to win the national Division I rushing title, as he rushed for 1,658 yards and would be drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1988 NFL Draft. 1994 would be another memorable season for the Rebels, as wide receiver Randy Gatewood would set two single-game receiving records in a 48–38 loss to Idaho on September 17. The Rebels would then stun their heavily favored rival, UNR, 32–27 to win a share of the Big West Conference championship, the program's second title (but the first one it was allowed to keep). The Rebels would then go on to defeat Central Michigan 52–24 in the Las Vegas Bowl on their home field. In 1996 the Rebels, along with San Jose State would leave the Big West Conference and become a member of the heavily expanded Western Athletic Conference. The league announced that it would hold a championship game for the top team in each of the two divisions in the league at the end of each season and that the game would be held at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas. The Rebels would lose their first WAC game, 65–17 to Air Force on September 7. The Rebels would finally win their first WAC conference game in a 44–42 shootout against San Diego State on November 16, in a game in which freshman quarterback John Denton would set a NCAA freshman record for passing yards with 503. Although the Rebels finished an abysmal 1-11, Denton still set 10 NCAA freshman records. On October 17, 1998, UNLV would play in its first overtime game, eventually losing to San Diego State 20–17. In 1999, the Rebels finished with the program's first ever winless season, but did have its first consensus First Team All-American in punter Joe Kristosik, who averaged a nationally-best 46.2 yard per punt average. [edit] PresentIn 1999, the Rebels made headlines, first by leaving the WAC with seven other schools to form the Mountain West Conference, but also by announcing that the program had hired legendary collegiate and professional coach John Robinson as its eighth head coach.[1] The school would repeat its conference hardships in the Mountain West as it did in the WAC as the lost their conference opener on September 25, 52–14 to Utah. The Rebels would eventually win their first Mountain West game on October 9, 35–32 against Wyoming. Although 1999 was a rough year, a UNLV win in week two that year featured one of the most improbable endings in college football history. The Rebels trailed on the road against Baylor University 24-21 with 10 seconds left. Baylor possessed the ball at the UNLV 5 yard line and UNLV was out of timeouts. A kneel down would have given Baylor the victory, but Baylor chose to run the ball, fumbled, and UNLV's Kevin Thomas recovered and returned it 99 yards for a touchdown and a 27-24 Rebel win. 2000 seemed to be the year in which Rebels football would finally turn around, as the Rebels made numerous gains to become a competitor for the Mountain West crown. The Rebels start by upsetting previously undefeated Air Force 34–13 on September 30 in the first time that ABC came to Las Vegas for a Rebels football game. The Rebels would then end a five-game skid to rival UNR, defeating the Wolf Pack 34–13 in front of the largest crowd to see a game in the Battle for Nevada. The season would then go down to the wire as the Rebels had to pull out a 34–32 victory on the road against Hawai'i to clinch their third berth to a major bowl game. The Rebels would be chosen to be the Mountain West representative for the Las Vegas Bowl on December 20.[2] The Rebels would continue their undefeated streak in major bowl games as they defeated Arkansas 31–14 in front of a Las Vegas Bowl record 29,113 fans.[3] They finished the season 8-5. Before the start of the 2001 season, the Rebels garner national accolades as the team was ranked #25 in Sports Illustrated's preseason Top 25 and #24 in Football Digest's rankings. Quarterback Jason Thomas also garnered preseason national accolades as he was named a candidate for the Heisman Trophy, ranking as high a #7. Although the Rebels seemed good on paper, the team did not gel and ended the season a disappointing 4-7. On October 5, 2002, the Rebels defeated rival UNR 21–17 for Robinson's 200th career coaching victory. Robinson would then retire after the 2004 season, having lead the Rebels to a bowl game and 5 straight victories over rival UNR. On December 6, 2004, the Rebels hired Utah assistant coach, Mike Sanford as its ninth head football coach.[4] In three years behind the helm of the Rebels football program, Sanford has failed to win more than two games in each of his three seasons and has had back to back 2-10 seasons, finishing last in the Mountain West all three years. As a silver lining, Sanford has sent former Rebels Eric Wright and Beau Bell to the NFL draft. The Rebels finished the 2008 season with a 5-7 record after starting the season 3-1. This was the best win-loss record UNLV has had since going 6-6 in 2003. It also marked the first time UNLV did not finish last in its division since 2004. Their 23-20 victory over #15 Arizona St. was the first time the Rebels had beaten a ranked opponent since 2003. The win was Sanford's first victory against a ranked opponent, and one of UNLV's biggest upsets. The 2009 season was a disappointment for UNLV, and led to Sanford's dismissal as coach. UNLV was picked to finish fifth in the conference, but the team began to fall apart after a surprising loss at Wyoming. That was followed by losses at UNR, against Brigham Young and Utah, and at Texas Christian and the Air Force Academy — games in which UNLV was outscored 243-81. After the Air Force loss on Nov. 14, the school announced Sanford's last game as coach would be the season finale against San Diego State. [edit] Coaching history
Source:[5] [edit] Bowl History
[edit] Individual school records[edit] Rushing records
[edit] Passing records
[edit] Receiving records
Source:[5] [edit] Former players[edit] Alumni currently in pro football
[edit] Other notable alumni
[edit] In popular cultureAn episode of You Can't Do That on Television once opened with Les Lye's announcement that UNLV's home game with the UCLA Bruins was being preempted because "uclavsunlv is a dirty word in Yugoslavian." [edit] References
[edit] External links
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