UNLV Rebels Running Back Jai'Den Thomas is 'Remarkable'

UNLV Rebels running back Jai'Den Thomas has garnered a ton of attention heading into 2025 after an impressive 2024 season. He has already been named Preseason First-Team All-Mountain West, and his name is often brought up as a potential Mountain West Conference Offensive Player of the Year candidate.

Expectations are high for Jet this season. Mountain West Connection recently spoke about what they expect from Thomas this season, as well as what a good job head coach Dan Mullen is doing filling out the rest of the running back room with strong backups like Jaylon Glover.

Mountain West Connection's Take

"The running back room is headlined by Jai’Den Thomas. He was remarkable last season, rushing for 918 yards. He was named Second Team All-Mountain West and had incredible games last season against Nevada, San Jose State, and Hawaii. He is looking to build off of that and become the best running back in the Mountain West. He was voted onto the Preseason All-Mountain West Team, showing that the expectations for him are high. He will be the physical, relentless, workhouse for the UNLV offense. A lot of trust will be put into him, but there are great running backs backing him up as well. Dan Mullen brought in Jaylon Glover from Utah, in his three seasons with the Utes he ran for 982 yards and six touchdowns. Glover will come into the game to give Thomas a break, and when that time comes Glover is a perfect backup for that moment."

The Rebels are going to rely heavily on these running backs this season. They make a very good point that while Thomas is getting all the attention, backups like Glover are going to play a key role as well. This is going to be a run-heavy offense, and it's going to take multiple running backs to handle the workload.