Blowout losses to Utah too familiar for UNLV football

UNLV coach Mike Sanford sat down for the post-game news conference after his team’s 2005 meeting with Utah and insisted the Rebels didn’t lose so much as “time ran out on us.”

UNLV finished strong enough in that game to make it seem as if another few minutes might have produced a victory. The Rebels scored two touchdowns in the final five minutes to turn a 42-20 deficit into a 42-32 loss.

When the outcome still was in doubt, though, Utah pounded UNLV. A typical Saturday between the two.

The Rebels have losing records against every Mountain West Conference football team except Wyoming, but no one has owned them quite like Utah. The Utes will try to stretch their series winning streak to 12 games when the teams face each other at 7 p.m. Saturday at Sam Boyd Stadium.

“We don’t feel like we’re the Cubs and we’re cursed or anything like that,” said UNLV defensive tackle Jacob Hales, who went to Las Vegas High. Hales has been part of the past two losses to the Utes, last season’s 45-23 defeat and the game in 2005.

The games have not been close enough to chalk up to curses. The closest margins were 10-point Utah victories in 1982 and 2005.

Since the teams began playing annually in 1999 with the formation of the MWC, Utah has had little trouble dominating UNLV. That year, the Utes walloped the Rebels, 52-14. In 2001, the final score was 42-14. In 2004, the Utes cruised to a 63-28 win.

UNLV’s lone victory was in the first game of the series, a 43-41 win in 1979.

“I don’t know if you can explain one team beating you as many times as they’ve beaten us,” said senior Rebels guard Mike McKiski, who went to Coronado High School. “I don’t think they’ve gotten our signals down or anything like that.”

Utah would seem to have the mental edge entering Saturday’s game, but Utes coach Kyle Whittingham pointed to his team’s 44-6 victory over UCLA on Saturday as proof not to put much emphasis on the past. UCLA had been 8-0 against the Utes.

“I’m not sure the past record against UNLV will have any bearing this year, but our guys are confident,” Whittingham said.

Utah’s recent domination is an issue that hangs over the Rebels’ collective heads. The only way to make it a nonissue is to win.

“That’s a huge thing from a pride standpoint and from a motivation standpoint,” Sanford said. “Our team can do something that no team at UNLV has done since 1979.”