Hill: After all these years, UNLV should be proud, even in defeat

Well, maybe just that a whole lot of points were scored. More on that in a bit.

It was the first UNLV game a father who had just relocated his family to Las Vegas decided to take his three sons to in order to show them what big-time sports looked like in their new hometown.

My brothers and I, having been born in Ann Arbor in the shadows of Michigan Stadium, weren’t impressed.

We had heard all about UNLV and loved everything the program represented far before we arrived in Las Vegas, and we couldn’t wait to see what it was all about.

But this wasn’t basketball. It was football. And it wasn’t good.

No moral victories, but …

There was a bright spot, according to some fans around us, though.

“Hey, there were almost 100 points scored,” they said of a 52-40 New Mexico State win. “At least that’s entertaining.”

Was that really the standard?

Maybe it was a down year, we considered.

Ended up being some down decades.

But that day did start the beginning of my days closely watching the Rebels.

Several years later, I was fortunate enough to cover a brief program resurgence with legendary coach John Robinson as the sports editor of the campus newspaper.

It was short-lived.

There haven’t been a whole lot of moments for UNLV football fans to celebrate over the years. An occasional superstar player. A sporadic win here and there over a power conference opponent to put some shine on a 3-9 season. Random bowl games here and there.

Then there was Friday night in Boise. Barry Odom and his players have rightfully fought back against the declaration of a moral victory based on the minuscule standards on which the program is usually judged.

They’re not wrong.

Moral victories are not for winners, which is what this program has become. They shouldn’t usually be celebrated or even acknowledged.

But come on.

In over 30 years of following this program, nothing like this had ever happened.

Old friends checking in with one another to share old stories of dirt-lot tailgates and losing football at Sam Boyd. Group meetups to watch the game to the bitter end. A true sense of disappointment after real belief had been created going into the biggest game in program history.

For UNLV football.

Odom and his players should rightly believe they fell short. They played far from their best game on the biggest stage and let a potential trip to the first 12-team College Football Playoff skip away.

But think about that paragraph. The Rebels are nationally relevant. They actually matter. That is wild.

So don’t consider it a moral victory. Look at it as a lasting memory and a resetting of the standard.

Fool’s Gold

Fortunately, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred appears to be hedging on how close the league could be to implementing the so-called “Golden At-Bat” rule.

He seems to enjoy floating things like this into the Twitterverse and seeing how people react.

There was far more mockery than support of this one, and rightfully so.

It’s a preposterous idea.

Manfred now says it was just something that sparked some good conversation at last month’s competition committee meeting, and he thought it was interesting even though he didn’t support it.

The rule would theoretically allow a team to send any player it wants up to bat one time in any game. So Bryce Harper could smack a home run and then just step in the box again once he touches home plate.

Get Shohei Ohtani out to get out of a jam in the eighth? Get ready to face him again in the ninth.

Some of the changes Manfred has helped usher into the game have been helpful. Even the most stodgy of purists has to concede the pitch clock has been great.

Baseball should be innovative and open to all options.

But this ain’t it.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.