UNLV and Hawai'i both stumbled out of the gate in Week 1, and neither gets the luxury of licking its wounds — the loser of this one starts Mountain West play in a hole.
UNLV comes off a debut that started well and fell apart late. Auburn transfer Jackson Arnold looked the part early against Memphis before the operation around him broke down, and now the Rebels head to Honolulu for their first Mountain West test of the year. Hawai'i counters with Micah Alejado, the league's reigning Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, getting his first home crack at proving last year's breakthrough was real.
+Returns core of a 9-4, Hawai'i Bowl-winning roster
+Alejado is reigning MW Preseason Offensive POY
−Leading WR Ashlock questionable with injury
−Blew a 16-point lead in season opener
The line up front is where this one gets decided. UNLV starting center Austin Boyd went down late against Memphis and is out again Saturday — his absence turned the Rebels' final possessions into a string of sacks and a fumbled snap, and Dan Mullen has one week to find answers, not a bye. Hawai'i, meanwhile, is waiting on word on leading receiver Pofele Ashlock, who's questionable after missing time; if he's limited, that's a real dent in an offense that nearly erased a 16-point deficit against Stanford.
Both programs walked out of Week 1 at 0-1, so Saturday is as much about identity as it is about the conference standings, and that raises the temperature on a night game at the Ching Complex.
UNLV's roster overhaul was supposed to make this kind of trip a formality — Jaylon Glover in the backfield, Denver Harris on the back end, a five-star tight end in Aveon Williams — and Arnold's 17-of-21 outing showed the ceiling is real even in a loss. But Memphis outscored the Rebels 20-7 after halftime once the pressure started getting home, and a shorthanded offensive line traveling to a loud road environment is exactly the spot that repeats itself.
Hawai'i's counter-argument is the roster continuity from a 9-4, Hawai'i Bowl-winning season, plus a defense anchored by returning veterans up front and in the secondary. The Rainbow Warriors had Stanford on the ropes in the fourth quarter before it slipped away, which says more about this team's floor than the final score did.
Neither team looked finished in its opener, which is the honest way to read this one — two rosters that showed real talent and real leaks in the same 60 minutes, now getting a second look at each other with a conference record on the line.
