Plenty still at stake when Y. plays UNLV

Languishing near the bottom of the Mountain West Conference standings, both BYU and UNLV are all but eliminated from the league championship race.

Yet the Cougars and Rebels say there's a lot at stake Saturday (5 p.m., Ch. 4) when they square off at Sam Boyd Stadium.

"We're two teams that need this win," said UNLV coach John Robinson. "There's no question we're both very hungry for a win."

Starving, in fact.

While the Cougars have dropped four of their last five games, the Rebels are also reeling. After starting out 4-1, they are 0-2 in the MWC.

"UNLV has looked good at times," said BYU coach Gary Crowton. "They've also had their own struggles."

Indeed, the Rebels have experienced a bit of the good, the bad and the ugly this season.

The Good: UNLV earned a shocking 23-5 victory over then-No. 14 Wisconsin on Sept. 13 in Madison, Wis. The Rebels forced five turnovers, including a 55-yard fumble return for a touchdown by safety Jamaal Brimmer, arguably the best defensive player in the MWC. He also had an interception that led to a UNLV touchdown.

The Cougars know all about Brimmer, who enjoyed a stellar outing in the Rebels' 24-3 win in Provo a year ago. He forced a pair of fumbles and returned one of those for a 27-yard touchdown after sacking quarterback Matt Berry, who was making his first start.

After defeating Wisconsin, UNLV downed Hawaii, 33-22, at home. In those two games, the Rebel defense had 11 take-aways. Then they earned a 16-12 win at archrival Nevada. That lifted the Rebels to a 4-1 record — their best start since quarterback Randall Cunningham led UNLV to an 11-2 mark in 1984. Picked to finish sixth in the preseason media poll, the Rebels appeared poised to prove the pundits wrong.

The Bad: The past two weeks, UNLV has looked very much like a sixth-place team. The Rebels opened MWC play with a 24-7 loss at Air Force, then, a week ago, were handled by league-leading Utah, 28-10.

Defensively, the Rebels had only one take-away in those two games. Offensively, junior quarterback Kurt Nantkes has struggled (he's thrown just one touchdown pass in the last 17 quarters). While UNLV boasts two solid running backs, Larry Croom (who rushed for 114 yards against Utah) and Dominique Dorsey, as well as a talented wide receiver in Earvin Johnson, it has put only 17 points on the scoreboard in two games.