Cal Football: First Look at Bears' Next Opponent -- UNLV Trying to Get Rolling

Led by former Cal assistant Marcus Arroyo, the Rebels routed Idaho State 52-21 in opener.

Coach Marcus Arroyo, who played quarterback at San Jose State and served as an assistant coach at both Cal and SJSU, returns to the Bay Area on Saturday with a UNLV team hoping to alter its path of the past two decades.

Arroyo, 42, faces a stiff challenge, and not just Saturday when the Rebels (1-0) take on the Bears (1-0) in a duel of teams that opened their seasons with wins over FCS opponents from the Big Sky Conference. Cal and UNLV are meeting for the first time.

UNLV has enjoyed precisely one winning season since 2000, going 7-6 in 2013. The Rebels were 0-6 in 2020 — a season shortened by COVID-19 — and 2-10 a year ago, beating New Mexico and Hawaii.

From 2001 through 2021, the Rebels were 70-177.

To help turn those fortunes, Arroyo sought higher-end talent through the transfer portal. The Rebels’ roster features more than two dozen first-year players who attended school last season at colleges of all levels from California, Colorado, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah, New Jersey, South Caroline, Tennessee, Texas, Kansas, Florida, Iowa and Michigan.

The recruiting class from the two previous years included transfers from schools in Oregon, Arkansas and Indiana.

The early returns are encouraging. The Rebels routed a bad Idaho State team 52-21 two weeks ago in the opener, before getting a bye last weekend. The outcome was in stark contrast to a year ago when UNLV lost to Eastern Washington, another Big Sky school, 35-33 in double-overtime.

The Rebels scored on all seven of their first-half possessions, and showed some much-needed explosiveness. “That says a lot about the possibility of what we can become,” Arroyo told reporters.

They have a bonafide star at wide receiver in redshirt sophomore Ricky White, a transfer from Michigan State. White showed his pedigree two years ago when he caught eight passes for 196 yards and a touchdown as a freshman in a win at Michigan.

White did not play the 2021 seasons for reasons MSU never disclosed.

But the 6-1, 195-pounder made quite a first-impression with the Rebels, catching eight passes for 182 yards and two touchdowns, including a 72-yarder in the second quarter.

“To see him naturally react to the game situations and how fast he picked things up showed us that he knows the offense, he knew what he had to do,” Arroyo said after the game. “And that he has the game-breaking ability, we saw it. It was pretty evident that guy’s pretty special.”

The Rebels’ starting running back is Aidan Robbins, a 6-3, 230-pound transfer from Louisville, where he graduated in three years but rarely played. He rushed 10 times for 35 yards against Idaho State and scored two TDs.

“He’s got power, speed, he can catch the ball in the backfield, and more than adequate long speed,” Arroyo said. “He’s a big body that’s got an all-purpose, all-down type of mentality. That’s been impressive.”

Tennessee transfer Harrison Bailey was expected to emerge as the starter from a fall camp quarterback competition. He played his high school senior season with White. Instead, returnee Doug Brumfield, a 6-foot-5 left-hander who missed the final nine games last year with a knee injury, won the job.

Brumfield confirmed Arroyo made the right call by completing 21 of 25 passes for 356 yards and four touchdowns, all of them in the first half.

“I was proud of the way he played,” Arroyo said. He’s matured, he was excited to play, you could see that. He was eager to do really well.”

Brumfield, who won MWC Player of the Week honors, said early success fueled the Rebels’ confidence.

“It was big for an offense to have that confidence and momentum,” Brumfield said. “In a lot of games last year, we weren’t able to do that. So to come out this year in our first game and execute is very big.”

Arroyo spent the 2011 and ’12 seasons coaching quarterbacks (primarily Zach Maynard) at Cal under Jeff Tedford. He spent three seasons (2017-18-10) coaching quarterbacks and running the offense at Oregon, then landed his first head coaching job in Las Vegas.

This was not going to be an easy fix, but Arroyo sounds like he believes the bad, old days are in the rear-view mirror.

“It’s different,” Arroyo said. “We’re over being circled (by opponents as a win) on the schedule. That’s over.”

Cover photo of UNLV quarterback Doug Brumfield by Lucas Peltier

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo