Nevada Sports Net Predicts UNLV Will Finish Outside Top Two In Mountain West Race

We have been seeing a lot of odds and predictions for the upcoming college football season being released recently. The UNLV Rebels football team is one of the more polarizing cases in college football this year. Despite changing their head coach and losing a ton of talent, most seem to still be very high on them this year. Vegas has given them their highest win total of all time at 8.5 and has them heavy favorites to finish second in the Mountain West Conference. ESPN's FPI is also extremely high on UNLV, having them neck and neck with the Boise State Broncos in all categories and even predicting a higher win total for the Rebs. 

Nevada Sports Net Projects UNLV To Finish Third In Mountain West

However, not everyone is sold on UNLV being able to just pick up where they left off with former head coach Barry Odom and star players like quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams, wide receiver Ricky White III, and linebacker Jackson Woodard. Nevada Sports Net (NSN) is projecting them to finish third in the Mountain West and take a step back this year due to all the changes. This is what they had to say about the Rebels this upcoming season:

"UNLV lost more talent than anybody in the MW with the Rebels ranking in the bottom 10 in the nation in returning productivity. Ten of UNLV's 11 All-MW honors are gone with the only exception being RB Jai’Den Thomas (918 yards, eight touchdowns), a potential MW preseason offensive player of the year. Throw in the fact there's a new coaching staff, and there's plenty of reasons to doubt UNLV being this high. But that staff is led by Dan Mullen, the highest-paid coach in MW history. He brought in a strong transfer class and should produce immediate results for UNLV, which plays a softer non-league schedule (UCLA, Sam Houston, Miami-Ohio, Idaho State) and avoids two of the MW's 2024 bowl teams (Fresno State, SJSU)."

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