UNLV Football Faces Growing Pains Despite High Expectations Under Dan Mullen

It's fair to say that there is a good chance that the UNLV Rebels football team may take a few games to hit their stride in 2025. Both the coaching staff and roster have seen a major overhaul despite coming off back-to-back very successful seasons in which the team has played in the Mountain West Championship Game. They lost head coach Barry Odom to the Purdue Boilermakers and star players like wide receiver Ricky White III, linebacker Jackson Woodard, and safety Johnathan Baldwin to the NFL. However, it's a strange case because despite all of that, they could be even better this year after new head coach Dan Mullen had a great offseason, bringing in players through the transfer portal. 

UNLV Faces Tough Test In Week 2 Against The UCLA Bruins

In the second game of the season, the Rebels host the UCLA Bruins in what will be a tough test for UNLV and likely an even tougher test for UCLA. While the Rebels will likely be the favorites in this game, the team still has a lot of question marks. UCLA Wire recently said that the Rebels will be "an offense that is working out the kinks" in their Week 2 matchup. Dylan McNeil went on to talk about the potential highs and lows that the Rebels may be facing in this game.

"UNLV saw their offensive coordinator Brennan Marion depart to become the head coach at Sacramento State. Marion helped conduct the go-go offense with UNLV last season so it’ll be interesting to see how the Rebels fare without Marion on their sideline in 2025... The Rebels hired head coach Dan Mullen back in December and Mullen prefers to run the spread offense, which could lead to a noticeable shift to UNLV’s offense in 2025 even with the good results in 2024... UNLV doesn’t have a surefire starting quarterback as we head towards the season, with Michigan transfer Alex Orji and Virginia transfer Anthony Colandrea competing for the starting spot. The Rebels’ offense has room to improve from 2024, as they completed just 57.61% of their passes attempted last and averaged just 172.64 passing yards per game."

McNeil makes a lot of true and fair points about the Rebels, particularly their new offense. While we do believe they may have some kinks to work out, we also agree that the UNLV offense has more upside under coach Mullen even if it will be tough to match what Odom achieved on defense.  

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