UCLA 2025 Football Opponent Primer: UNLV

The UCLA Bruins are entering their second season in the Big Ten Conference with the hopes of erasing last season's 5-7 record from memory by improving in every facet.

In DeShaun Foster's first full offseason at the helm in Westwood, the Bruins did just that -- improved and restructured nearly every facet of the program from the field to the coaching staff.

With that being said, let's take start taking a look at UCLA's 2025 season opponents and how ESPN's Bill Connelly previews them ahead of the season, starting with the Bruins' week two clash against Dan Mullen and the UNLV Rebels.

According to ESPN's football power index (FPI), UNLV is expected to be a decent team in the Mountain West Conference this year, winning a projected 7.8 games, being the 75th-ranked team in college football.

The Bruins' Sept. 6 matchup against the Rebels is one that Connelly is keeping an eye on, citing, "After an almost complete roster teardown (the second in three years), UNLV could be just about anything in 2025. If Mullen and company can generate some immediate traction and upside, this one could easily be within reach for the Rebels. One way or the other, we'll learn what we need to know about the Rebels pretty quickly."

Here's what Connelly had to say about UNLV as a program ahead of this season:

"While Deion Sanders earned most of the publicity two years ago when he came to Colorado and flipped almost the entire roster in a single offseason, Barry Odom basically did the same thing at UNLV, and with better immediate results. It took a year for CU to generate any real progress, but Odom's Rebels immediately surged from 5-7 to 9-4 in 2023, then fielded what was, per SP+, their best ever team in 2024.

"In 28 years before Odom's arrival, UNLV had averaged a dire 3.3 wins per season with 13 years at two or fewer wins and only three at six wins or more. Then the Rebels won 20 in two years under Odom. Now he's at Purdue.

"When you overachieve dramatically compared to your historic norm and then lose the head coach who engineered said overachievement, that's usually an ironclad guarantee of immediate regression. But with transfers and immediate rebuilds becoming more of the norm, history might mean a little bit less than it used to. UNLV replaced Odom with just about the most proven coach available -- in 13 seasons at Mississippi State and Florida, Dan Mullen won at least eight games eight times with six SP+ top-15 finishes -- and he'll oversee a roster loaded with former blue-chippers and/or power-conference signees.

"By my count, there are 16 former blue-chippers on the roster. And almost none of them have played with each other before. It's easy to see how this all comes together beautifully, especially on offense, where Mullen teams have almost always been solid and Mullen hired an intriguing young coordinator in Corey Dennis. But this is also a giant chemistry experiment that could go awry in pretty obvious ways. The uncertainty makes UNLV one of the country's more intriguing teams; it also makes them pretty hard to project with confidence."

Should UCLA come out of week one against Utah with a win, their next best test in non-conference play is the Rebels, and a win could be the avenue to a possible 4-0 start with New Mexico and Northwestern on the horizon.