UNLV, Kansas meet in Guaranteed Rate Bowl as programs on the rise
The football teams from Kansas and UNLV will be squaring off in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Chase Field. The teams have similar trajectories after their head coaches took over losing programs.
Lance Leipold is in his third year at Kansas (8-4) while Barry Odom is rounding out his first, with the Rebels (9-4) arriving earlier than anyone could have expected.
This marks the UNLV's first winning season and bowl appearance since 2013. The nine wins are the most since an 11-2 showing in 1984 when the team was quarterbacks by Randall Cunningham. The Rebels have also done it with a freshman quarterback. There was even more adversity with a shooting on the UNLV campus two weeks ago that claimed the lives of three professors.
The head coaches and a handful of select players were center stage Sunday at media day at the JW Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort & Spa.
"I don't think, in coaching, I never put a limit on what I thought the win total would be," Odom said. "You've got to approach every single week with exactly the same, and then the senior class, they didn't want me as the new coach coming in and saying, well, this is a rebuild. They didn't want to hear that. They wanted to hear the plan on how we were going to win and win right away. The kids have done a great job on living to the standard and the expectation of what we can do."
UNLV has been led by freshman quarterback Jayden Maiava, who stepped into the position when veteran Doug Brumfield was sidelined first with a concussion, then with a torso/rib ailment. He threw for 2,626 yards and 14 touchdowns on the season and led all FBS freshmen with a .641 completion percentage, which helped land him Mountain West Freshman of the Year honors.
But the adversity carries right into the holiday month with the shooting on campus.
Odom said he and his staff were out on the road recruiting when that occurred. They tried reaching out to their players, aided by some staff that was on campus.
The players were in an informal workout, so they were together, which made it easier to deal with.
"It was definitely a devastating and unfortunate time for us, but I believe that the players, they are going to keep balling and just try to keep focus on the game and practicing and preparing," Maiava said.
Others say the tragedy was a reality check.
"It's sad. It was surreal," sophomore linebacker Jackson Woodard said. "You never think something like that is going to happen at your school. I was in the facility with my brothers, my family. That's what we took from the situation. In hard times, scary times you want to be with your family and my teammates are family."
Kansas football making its own mark
Kansas has always been known for its basketball program, which won its most recent national championship in 2022. Leipold hasn't found it hard to play in that team's shadow. In fact, he says there is plenty of success to go around.
"It gets talked about on a fairly regular basis," he said. "That program being one of the winningest programs in basketball history deserves all the attention and then some. Bill Self is a Hall of Fame coach and he's been very supportive of our program. But they're not on our schedule. That's not who I am competing against. We want to focus on what we're doing but I'm a firm believer in being an 'and' school rather than an 'or' school. You don't have to be a football school or a basketball school. You can be both and I think our fan base is behind both as well.
Leipold has a tie to ASU through basketball, sort of.
He came to Kansas from Buffalo. His first year at that school, current ASU men's basketball coach Bobby Hurley was still at Buffalo.
"Shortly after I arrived, one of my first meetings, I had a chance to sit down and talk to him. He's a good man and a good coach," Leipold said.
Odds and ends
The Rebels have been practicing at Tempe Diablo Stadium where the Angels hold spring training. They think playing on the grass will help them prepare for playing at Chase Field. This is the first time this season UNLV is playing on grass.
"I think it's going to be the same, business as usual. We've been practicing this whole week on grass, so everybody has adjusted to that really," UNLV wide receiver Ricky White said.
Kansas quarterback Jason Bean has enjoyed the scenery in Arizona, getting in a hiking excursion to Echo Canyon Trail with some teammates.
"We weren't there for long but we did get to go up there. There aren't mountains or views like that in Kansas," he said.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: UNLV no stranger to adversity, ready for Kansas in Guaranteed Rate Bowl
