David to need big slingshot

Freshman Shane Horton played for Southern California high school football power Notre Dame and could have gone to a Pacific-10 Conference school such as UCLA or Oregon, where being the favorite would have been the norm.

Instead, Horton chose to play safety at UNLV, but his lofty expectations have not changed even with No. 5 Wisconsin on the schedule at 7 p.m. today at Sam Boyd Stadium. The Badgers are the highest-ranked team to ever visit the Rebels.

"Wisconsin is a big-time school, and it's a little different going in as the underdogs," Horton said. "That didn't happen too many times in high school, but it's a new experience that I'm happy to be a part of and kind of play with a chip on our shoulder."

The Rebels (1-0) are 26 1/2-point underdogs to a Wisconsin team that is the third top-10 school to play at UNLV.

Kansas State was ranked No. 8 in the coaches' poll in 1994, though the Wildcats were No. 11 in The Associated Press' rankings. They had little trouble with UNLV, which won the Big West Conference championship the week before, in a 42-3 drubbing.

No. 10 Southern Methodist visited in 1984 and won 38-21.

Wisconsin (1-0) also becomes the highest-ranked team to play at Sam Boyd Stadium. That distinction previously belonged to No. 6 Brigham Young, which defeated Wyoming 28-25 in overtime in the 1996 Western Athletic Conference Championship.

Tennessee is the highest-ranked team to play the Rebels. The No. 2 Volunteers hosted UNLV in 1996 and eked out a 62-3 victory.

A similar loss isn't on the minds of UNLV's players and coaches entering tonight's game. But after opening with a 23-16 victory at Utah State on Aug. 30, the Rebels know they need to step up their performance to match the talent on the other side of the field.

"It's a chance to show we can play with the best teams in the country," UNLV quarterback Travis Dixon said.

UNLV will get the chance to do so in a packed stadium, with possibly half the crowd cheering for the Badgers.

"People want to talk about them having a lot of fans here. That's the reality of it," Rebels coach Mike Sanford said. "I just want to make sure that our fans are louder than their fans."

The only way to ensure that is to beat the Badgers, which might sound laughable.

Good luck, though, finding many people grinning in Ann Arbor, Mich., these days. The thought of the then-No. 5 Wolverines losing to a Division I-AA school seemed inconceivable, but Appalachian State showed last Saturday anything is possible in stunning Michigan 34-32 and landing on the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated.

Sanford has dropped a reference or two to that game with his team this week. And while he said Appalachian State's victory encourages underdogs everywhere, he knows the masses expect a Wisconsin win.

"People going into the season didn't give us a lot of respect, and people right now don't give us a lot of respect about our opportunity and chances to win this game," Sanford said. "We have something to prove."

• TICKETS AVAILABLE -- About 350 tickets remained as of late Friday. The Thomas & Mack Center box office opens at 10 a.m. today, and tickets will be sold at the stadium at 2 p.m. if any remain. UNLV athletic director Mike Hamrick said about 10,300 season tickets have been sold, about double last year and believed to be a school record.