{"id":34606,"date":"2014-07-29T19:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T00:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=34606"},"modified":"2014-07-29T17:56:51","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T22:56:51","slug":"2014-unlv-rebels-college-football-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/2014-unlv-rebels-college-football-preview-34606\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 UNLV Rebels College Football Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

UNLV Rebels
\nHead Coach:\u00a0 Bobby Hauck
\n2013-14 Record:\u00a0 7-6, 5-3 Mountain West Conference
\n2013-14 Bowl Result:\u00a0 36-14 loss to North Texas in Heart of Dallas
\nOdds to Win National Championship:\u00a0 Field +2142<\/strong><\/p>\n

Returning Starters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Offense:\u00a0 7, Defense:\u00a0 6<\/p>\n

Offense<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The UNLV Rebels have enough talent returning to exceed last year’s win total<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This group is a bit of a concern due to the graduation of quarterback Caleb Herring and all-time rushing leader Tim Cornett, which is important to consider when making your college football picks, but the program has added depth in Hauck\u2019s previous four years.<\/p>\n

College football experts expect junior Nick Sherry to take over under center, as he started the first two games as a sophomore before Herring took over the controls.<\/p>\n

Four legit candidates are ready to run the rock, with Shaquille Murray-Lawrence being the leader of that group, as he ran for 418 yards on just 47 carries.<\/p>\n

Offensively, the strength of this unit is definitely senior wide receiver Devante Davis, who grabbed 87 passes for 1,290 yards and set a school record with 14 touchdowns.<\/p>\n

Four of five starters return to Sin City\u2014a group that has produced back-to-back 1,000-yard rushers.<\/p>\n

Defense<\/strong><\/p>\n

The area undergoing the biggest makeover is on the front lines, but many believe the team can survive with multiple junior college signees.<\/p>\n

UNLV will be extremely youthful at linebacker, considering sophomore Tau Lotulelei, who is the only current Rebel to have started a game at the position.<\/p>\n

Strong safety Peni Vea is the school\u2019s leading returning tackler with 108 takedowns, while free safety Mike Horsey has improved each year since arriving on campus.<\/p>\n

College football handicappers will find that the Rebels have arguably the best duo of cornermen in the Mountain West with the return of Tajh Hasson and Kenneth Penny.<\/p>\n

Schedule<\/strong><\/p>\n

UNLV will be tested in a major way out of the gate, as it looks to gain revenge from a 58-13 home loss to the Arizona Wildcats last year, as it allowed 397 rushing yards in that affair.<\/p>\n

The Rebels schedule really gets going with a pair of road games against San Diego State and San Jose State to open up conference play, while they return home to host Fresno State in Week 7 of the 2014 campaign.<\/p>\n

Outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rebels are capable of exceeding last year\u2019s win total, but Sherry will need to do a better job of protecting the football, which is certainly possible due to it being offensive coordinator Timm Rosenbach\u2019s second season in Vegas.<\/p>\n

Make sure to become a long term subscriber for the best college football picks anywhere for the upcoming 2014-15 NCAA football season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UNLV Rebels Head Coach:\u00a0 Bobby Hauck 2013-14 Record:\u00a0 7-6, 5-3 Mountain West Conference 2013-14 Bowl Result:\u00a0 36-14 loss to North Texas in Heart of Dallas Odds to Win National Championship:\u00a0 Field +2142 Returning Starters Offense:\u00a0 7, Defense:\u00a0 6 Offense This group is a bit of a concern due to the graduation of quarterback Caleb Herring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":23866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[7803,8414,508,8330,8415,438],"class_list":["post-34606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-bobby-hauck","tag-devante-davis","tag-mountain-west-conference","tag-nick-sherry","tag-tau-lotulelei","tag-unlv-rebels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34607,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34606\/revisions\/34607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}