UNLV football recruiting at high level under Arroyo

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Lucas Peltier/UNLV

UNLV football coach Marcus Arroyo speaks during a press conference announcing the Rebels’ 2020 recruiting class on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020.

Sun, Aug 23, 2020 (2 a.m.)

Kevon Ivy knew there was something he liked about the UNLV football coaching staff when, during a Zoom call a couple months ago, the topic of conversation turned to the video game Madden.

Ivy, a 3-star defensive lineman from Duncanville, Texas, considers himself an adept Madden gamer. So too, it turned out, did one of UNLV’s assistants.

That led to some friendly trash talk between Ivy and the coach, and before the meeting ended a challenge was issued.

“He just said, ‘We can play,’” Ivy recalls. “I got his Xbox tag and we played after the meeting. We had a good time, just me and him. It was cool. I won.”

Not long after that, Ivy committed to UNLV, making him one of 19 players now pledged to Marcus Arroyo in the Class of 2021. The incoming group — which will be Arroyo’s first full class since accepting the job — is already large, deep and exceptionally talented by UNLV’s standards. The class is currently ranked No. 1 in the Mountain West by 247Sports, ahead of No. 2 San Diego State and No. 3 Colorado State.

Ivy is a big part of that cumulative ranking, and his recruitment offers some insight as to how Arroyo and his staff have been able to put together one of the most promising classes in the program’s history despite being handcuffed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Though Ivy wasn’t able to take a visit to UNLV, he said the staff still found a way to make the campus and football facilities feel familiar to him and that he developed an especially tight relationship with defensive line coach Chad Kauha’aha’a.

“Oh man, where do I start?” Ivy said when asked about the process. “First, let me say that coach Chad is literally the G.O.A.T. He’s the best, the coolest, the most understanding coach that I met in my recruiting process. Coach Arroyo and every coach on the staff made me feel like, ‘We really, really want you to be here.’ They knew I had all these other schools looking at me but they wanted to make sure I knew that I was a person they really wanted on the team. That separated them from all the other schools.”

The 2021 class is loaded with high-school prospects who feel the same way Ivy does about UNLV. Sierra Vista (Baldwin Park, Calif.) teammates Nick Dimitris (defensive end) and Anthony Rosas (offensive line) are UNLV’s highest-rated recruits ever at their respective positions, while Cameron Friel (Kailua, Hawaii) is rated as the nation’s No. 47 quarterback and Jaylen Lane (Pearland, Texas) is the No. 67 safety.

And now that the ball is rolling, it seems UNLV’s recruiting momentum is starting to influence players’ decisions in a positive way.

The latest addition, 3-star cornerback Kilinahe Mendiola-Jensen, said he chose UNLV over offers from UNR, San Diego State, Utah State and Arizona in part because of the bond he felt with his fellow recruits.

“I had a really good relationship with the coaches, especially my position coach [Tre] Watson,” Mendiola-Jensen said. “All the coaches reached out to me and wrote a letter introducing themselves, and all the commits reached out and texted me to see how I’m doing and let me know where UNLV stands, so that was awesome. It felt like a family.”

Friel and Rosas in particular played a role in swaying Mendiola-Jensen, a 6-foot-2 cornerback from Punahou, Hawaii.

“Cameron Friel is one of my good friends,” he said. “We grew up playing against each other and we became friends over the years. He communicated with me, saying UNLV is going to be the next big thing and all that. And Anthony was always talking to me as well. There were a whole bunch of the guys texting me.”

In the absence of in-home visits and campus tours, the UNLV staff has focused on strong virtual communication and a high level of enthusiasm in order to engage with young players. In Ivy’s case it was an impromptu game of Madden, but the coaches have been successful at connecting with each player on an individual basis.

Despite the challenges, that approach is working at an unprecedented level for UNLV.

And for the record, Ivy reported that he won his Madden showdown in dramatic fashion.

“Of course, everyone seems to think they’re good at Madden for some reason,” Ivy said with a laugh. “When I saw he was actually kind of good, I had to start playing. He scored a touchdown to tie the game in the third quarter and I said no more of that. I think I won by two touchdowns.”

When asked if he ever considered the coach may have let him win in order to help secure his commitment, Ivy scoffed at the idea.

“Nah,” he said, “there was too much trash talk for either one of us to let the other one win.”

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.

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