UNLV Rebels Head Coach Dan Mullen: "I Really Thought We Played Well Defensively"

The UNLV Rebels football team bounced back this week after two straight losses to the Boise State Broncos and New Mexico Lobos, and blew out the Colorado State Rams on their home field of Canvas in Fort Collins, Colorado. UNLV won the game 42 - 10. Head coach Dan Mullen was proud of his team after the big win. Following the game, he spoke to the media about how proud he was of his players and their resiliency after a tough stretch of games.

UNLV Rebels Head Coach Dan Mullen On The Team's Week 11 Win Over The Colorado State Rams

"I'm really proud of the guys and how they respond as a team," Mullen said "Like I've said for a while, I think we do some of the tough things really, really well, like we stick together as a team. You don't see much finger pointing going on. I'm really pleased with our guys because we keep grinding on the little things. I still think we made some mistakes, a couple of penalties. There are still going to be a couple of missed assignments we're not going to be really pleased about, but overall, I really thought we played well defensively. They came out, coming off a bye week, showed some different looks, went down the field, scored, and I don't think they did much after that. And offensively, I thought up front, we played really well. Of course they're going to blitz you all over the place. They're going to get theirs. But I knew if we could cover them up when they blitz that much, you get to the second level and there's no one left if you're going to blitz. And we hit them on some really big runs that way."

Mullen On The Players Remaining Confident After Back-To-Back Losses

“The big thing I’m really proud of what they did is kept their confidence,” Mullen said. “Because there’s a lot of people out there, a lot of noise to not be a confident defense. Statistically, it wasn’t very good. But I think the guys inside could see where some of the issues were that we could correct, and we were able to do that.”

Mullen On His Defense On Third And First Downs

“We did a great job there. And we did a good job on first down of not letting them get to third-and-1. I think that certainly helped. Then we were able to get a little bit of pressure, and then we did a great job of coverage on the back end.”

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