What UNLV’s Dan Mullen said ahead of Mountain West championship game rematch with Boise State

‘Hands will be full,’ Mullen said

UNLV Rebels head coach Dan Mullen. | Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images

Will the third time be the charm for UNLV in the Mountain West championship game against Boise State? 

After falling to the Broncos (8-4, 6-2) in the last two MWC title games, the Rebels (10-2, 6-2) will get one last shot to dethrone Boise State on Friday at Albertsons Stadium. Kickoff is slated for 6 p.m. Mountain time.

“Hands will be full,” UNLV head coach Dan Mullen said on Monday. “Boise is obviously an extremely talented team, very well-coached, disciplined team.

“Just a top team. They are well-deserving to be in this championship game, so it will be a big challenge for our guys.” 

Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State are all leaving the MWC for the Pac-12 next summer. 

UNLV has dropped 10 consecutive games to Boise State, including a 56-31 road loss in October. The Rebels are 0-8 all-time on The Blue. 

“Seventy of our guys, this is their first year here,” Mullen said. “So for all of them, I don’t know about ‘It’s been a while since we’ve done anything.’ I know we didn’t win the last time, which was really disappointing, and we’d like to avenge that his time.” 

Here are the highlights from Mullen’s press conference. 

On growth from first meeting

“You look at that game, and I don’t want to put everything on the defense. We threw a pick-six in that game as well, made some mistakes that way. But you go into that game, and we were pinpointing mistakes (on defense). Certainly don’t take it this way, it wasn’t like every one of their scores came only because we made a mistake. They made some great plays, had a good scheme, those guys made things happen, too. But there were a couple of explosive plays where we had guys lined up on the wrong side of the field. … That’s bad ball.

“The first time we played, there was good and bad on both sides, but we were making mistakes that really cost us in that game.”

On return of Boise State quarterback Maddux Madsen 

“I think he’ll bring a huge lift to their team in his leadership. I think he’ll bring a huge lift to their crowd in the presence he’ll bring on the field. When your guy runs onto the field … what’s his name from the Knicks came running out of the tunnel in Game 7, right? The Willis Reed game. … You can see in sports, the emotion that has.”

On surviving MWC gauntlet 

“One of the things that makes the Mountain West such a great league, and I don’t know if we get the national credit that we deserve right now within this league … we’ve got that huge tie at the top to try to figure out who one and two are to go (to the championship game). It was a great honor.

“I think for us, I give our guys a lot of credit to finish number one (in the computer rankings) in the regular season. But I think also a credit goes to everybody in this league when you show the talent, the depth and the quality of teams from top to bottom in this league. Go look at the results from one week to the next and look at the quality and depth from top to bottom in this league. I look at some of the rankings, I don’t know if we quite get the credit this league deserves on a national basis compared to some others.”