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UNLV football head coach Barry Odom’s philosophy has maintained, “Those who win in November will be remembered.”
The Rebels beat the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, 29-27, Saturday, Nov. 9 in the Ninth Island Showdown fresh off an idle week. UNLV football has now won eight straight road games dating back to last season.
It also goes down as the program’s first Mountain West win since October 11.
Saturday’s win earned the Rebels just their ninth win all-time in 23 meetings against the Rainbow Warriors. It’s only the program’s third-ever win in Hawaii to improve to 3-9 in such scenarios.
Odom and company has also secured a winning season for a second straight year for the first time in 40 seasons. His team is now 7-2 on the year with a 3-1 mark in the conference. As a result, the program still sits in the third spot in the conference standings.
UNLV will play San Diego State next from Allegiant Stadium. Both of the team’s losses this season have come at home. The next installment of this rivalry will take place Saturday, Nov. 16 from The Death Star.
Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
Even with the win, the Rebels lost out on 18 points in the first half and led to the game being a lot tighter than it began. UNLV raced out to a 10-0 lead before missing out on some chances to extend the lead.
After recording its fifth blocked punt of the season, it narrowly missed out on a touchdown as it went out the back of the end zone for a safety.
On the next Hawaii offensive drive, defensive end Antonio Doyle Jr. snagged an interception and returned it to the house for six points. It would be called back due to a roughing the passer penalty.
In addition to those hiccups, freshman kicker Caden Chittenden missed two field goals on the night, both in the first half. As a result, the Rebels went into halftime up two points on the scoreboard.
UNLV made five trips to the red zone and only came away with six points.
In the third quarter, All-American receiver Ricky White III scored from 37 yards out on a Hajj-Malik Williams pass to regain the lead for the Rebels. A lead that the team would never relinquish again.
White was responsible for blocking that earlier punt for a total of four blocks on the year. He finished with 128 yards and a touchdown on seven receptions.
Williams completed 13 of his 27 passes for 175 yards and a touchdown but did a lot of his work with his legs once again. He scored the game’s first touchdown on a 23-yards scramble for a score on his way to 122 rushing yards on 19 carries.
In the second half, things really began to roll once freshman running back Greg Burrell started picking up steam resulting in the chains constantly moving. The game was essentially put out of reach on a 32-yard touchdown run from sophomore running back Jai’Den Thomas.
As a team, UNLV racked up 290 total rushing yards and two touchdowns on 48 touches.
The Rebel defense was beat deep several times by Rainbow Warriors quarterback Brayden Schager. He completed a 74-yard touchdown pass on the second play of the home team’s second drive.
Schager gave Hawaii its first lead of the game on the team’s first drive of the second half. Once again, he struck via a long deep pass down the sideline to the tune of 49 yards.
The Rainbow Warriors didn’t see the red zone until late in the third quarter. By then, the team just didn’t have much energy to finish its drives.
It was unable to finish drives to a final mark of 3-for-14 on third downs. UNLV wasn’t much better on third downs, going 7-for-19.
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