If it feels like the offseason is moving fast for UNLV football, it’s because it is. And with spring practice set to open today, the pace is picking up again.
The Scarlet and Gray played their last game just over two months ago in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl. It’s been a condensed offseason since then, with coaching carousel rumors and transfer portal news affording little time to breathe.
Now the team will hit the field for a five-week spring session that will be comprised of 15 practices and concludes April 6 with an open scrimmage.
Here are the key storylines to follow throughout spring ball:
Managing expectations
UNLV is coming off perhaps its best season ever, returns its entire coaching staff and appears to have one of the best rosters in the Mountain West — all at the precise time the college football playoffs are expanding to 12 teams. And one of those 12 slots is designated for the highest-rated Group of Five team, so … you get where we’re going with this.
It’s not an impossible dream for UNLV to make a run at that playoff spot. But what will that kind of hype do to a program that has gone decades without the weight of any expectations at all?
If UNLV is going to follow up its breakout 2023 season with an even better 2024, it will probably have to begin with a productive spring period. Second-year coach Barry Odom excelled at keeping his team focused last year, and there are key veteran leaders in place on both sides of the ball, so that’s a good start.
If we see a disciplined team at the end of spring, that will bode well for a potentially historic 2024 campaign.
Who’s the quarterback?
Jayden Maiava took over midway through the 2023 season, led UNLV to some stirring comeback victories, won MWC Freshman of the Year honors, then promptly transferred to USC. His sudden exit leaves a hole at quarterback Odom didn’t expect to have to fill so soon. Given the situation, Odom and his staff did a commendable job bringing in a pair of transfers capable of taking over.
The early favorite is Matthew Sluka, a senior transfer from Holy Cross who passed for 20 touchdowns last year while running for 1,237 yards and nine scores. Sluka looks like a neat fit in offensive coordinator Brennan Marion’s go-go offense, bringing a dynamic running ability to the position that Maiava did not, but Sluka is not enrolled at UNLV yet and won’t be participating in spring ball.
That leaves a lot of available reps for the other main contender, Campbell transfer Hajj-Malik Williams, a sixth-year senior who hit 70.7% of his passes for 2,609 yards with 20 touchdowns in 2023.
The job probably won’t be won outright in spring — Maiava tossed three interceptions in last year’s spring game and entered the season as the No. 2 guy — but this is when the quarterbacks can begin learning the nuances of the go-go offense and making their case to be the starter.
Ricky White gives UNLV a leg up
Ricky White was unstoppable last year, hauling in 88 passes for a school-record 1,483 yards. He should enter the season as a favorite to be the Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year — as long as he clicks with the team’s quarterback.
White stayed at UNLV in the offseason by passing on transfer offers from deep-pocketed schools that wanted him badly, sources told the Sun in January. UNLV’s NIL collective made keeping White a priority, and sources this week told the Sun that White remains happy with Las Vegas and ready to build off his record-setting 2023.
Spring ball will be important in that regard. Last year’s starter is gone, so White will be catching passes from a new quarterback. White is good enough that it shouldn’t matter, but it will be helpful to begin developing a rapport with the new guy as soon as possible.
Secondary support
The back end of UNLV’s defense was exploited late in the season. In the Mountain West championship game and the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, Boise State and Kansas combined to complete 81.6% of their passes for 675 yards and eight touchdowns. That marked the secondary as an obvious area to upgrade.
UNLV lost productive slot cornerback Jerrae Williams to the transfer portal, but the group should be more talented in 2024 thanks to an infusion of heralded transfers. Former 5-star recruit Tony Grimes is one of the highest-rated players to ever commit to UNLV, even if the cornerback only has one season of eligibility remaining, and former Arkansas corners Malik Chavis and LaDarrius Bishop bring power-conference experience.
Bishop Gorman product Jeremiah Vessel is also returning home to Las Vegas after playing his freshman year at New Mexico State.
Grimes is enrolled and will participate in spring, so we should see him and returning senior Cameron Oliver paired together as the outside corners. Between the newcomers and the holdovers, it’s an intriguing group, and the stakes are high — an upgraded secondary could help UNLV break through to the next level as a top 25-caliber team.
michael.grimala@lasvegas sun.com / 702-948-7844 / @MikeGrimala