Rebels under-delivered in loss to Memphis

LAS VEGAS — You knew it was going to be a weird evening Saturday when UNLV ran onto the field accompanied by Elvis for its Week 0 opener against Memphis.

Not Elvis Presley. Not Elvis “Toast” Patterson. Not Elvis Costello. Not Philly Elvis. Just Elvis.

I’m sure Dan Mullen will cherish the moment forever. Or at least when the Rebels return to Allegiant Stadium to host California on Oct. 3. Perhaps he’ll be the new school mascot since Hey Reb has been banished for a while now and has not been replaced.

Elvis. Not Mullen. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Year Two of the Mullen Era was like a car that had been sitting in the garage for a few months. Some fits and starts until the gas started circulating and the engine began to purr. That was true for the players, for the coaches, for the play calling. It’s Week 0 for a reason.

What started out as a punting contest finally evolved into a somewhat decent football game and with two schools harboring dreams of finding their way into the College Football Playoff come December, it also got intense, allowing the announced crowd of 31,384 to get into it.

Nearly four hours after it started, it was the Tigers who managed to come out on top, 27-21. For Memphis, the hope for a spot in the CFP remains for the moment. As for the Rebels, perhaps they could send Elvis back to Tennessee on Memphis’ flight home and drop him off at Graceland.

Hey, nobody should have expected perfection on opening night. Ultimately, the Rebels did more things wrong than right and they got the result they deserved. Yes, they’ll address the things that need cleaning up, the penalties, the missed assignments, stuff like that. Mullen and his staff will look at some of the calls they made and decide to ditch a few of them.

But too many mistakes, too little execution and enough flags to short-circuit any momentum on both sides of the ball has UNLV in regroup mode as it prepares to hit the road next week in Honolulu against a Hawaii team that had Stanford on the ropes late but failed to finish. It will be the Mountain West opener between a pair of 0-1 teams.

Yeah, Mullen will talk about how it’s just one game, how the Rebels still have plenty to play for, that the goals of winning the Mountain West and going to a bowl game are well within reach. And yes, he’s right. But to achieve those goals, UNLV has to get better, and not by a little, in a short period of time.

“We need to take some big steps forward,” Mullen said following his team’s being penalized for 75 yards, allowing six sacks and failing to finish off drives. “We need to be better in the red zone.”

Jackson Arnold took a lot of punishment in his debut as UNLV’s quarterback. It didn’t help matters when tackle Austin Boyd, the team’s best offensive lineman, went out in the fourth quarter.

Running back Jet Thomas, the team’s best offensive player, was under-utilized yet again. There was a 4th and-four call in the fourth quarter and Thomas was not in the game. Nor was he hurt. How does that happen? UNLV managed to get the first down and Thomas was back on the field the next play.

“We need to do a better job of getting Jet rolling,” Mullen said. Of course, it might help to have him on the field in order for that to happen. He still finished with 98 all-purpose yards including a team-high six receptions for 54 yards.

This was the kind of game UNLV won last year. It would find a way to get the big stop on defense, make the big play on offense and finish up on top. Perhaps the Rebels will figure things out and Saturday will be a disappointing yet distant memory.

“We’re going to be in a lot of close games and we have to find a way to win these close games,” Mullen said.

He’s right. There’s a lot of things to be cleaned up and not a lot of time in which to do it. The road beckons. As for Elvis, well, let him perform a wedding or something. He’s no good luck charm, that’s for sure.