Max Gilliam sticks it out at UNLV, earns starting role

Full disclosure: I had no idea Max Gilliam was still on UNLV’s football team. Thought he had graduated and moved on. Exhausted his college eligibility. Left the quarterback’s room for good.

But he’s not done proving others wrong, including absent-minded sports columnists. His football journey just hasn’t been perfect. Few are.

Gilliam is expected to start his third straight game of this young season when the Rebels host Fresno State on Saturday at Allegiant Stadium. The graduation part fits, Gilliam a senior who has earned a degree in economics.

How he got to this moment — the first quarterback to be given the nod as starter in the Marcus Arroyo Era — was hardly along an uncluttered path.

“Definitely not how I thought it would go,” Gilliam said.

Sticking around

He signed with California, redshirted as a freshman, wasn’t in the plans of a new coaching staff, transferred to Saddleback College in California for a season and received one scholarship offer. Gilliam enrolled at UNLV in the spring of 2018. Then things really took some sharp turns.

He would start seven games that season — taking over after Armani Rogers went down with injury — and throw for 1,394 yards and 14 touchdowns. Gilliam would do things few in his position had in recent times for the Rebels, like producing a win at San Diego State.

But something happened on the way to competing with Rogers for the No. 1 role last season. Gilliam broke a foot a few days before camp commenced, underwent surgery and didn’t play a snap in 2019.

And yet he remained at UNLV after Tony Sanchez was fired as coach and Arroyo was hired. Gilliam didn’t graduate in May and look elsewhere. He didn’t choose the route thousands do annually. One he had before. One that Rogers — now playing at Ohio — did.

“(Leaving) was never in my train of thought,” Gilliam said. “I was ready for a clean slate and a fresh start with a new staff here. I just wanted to put last year behind me, and the staff gave me an opportunity.”

Still, it seems a fluid process right now. UNLV lists three quarterbacks on its depth chart — Gilliam, Texas Christian transfer Justin Rogers and redshirt sophomore Kenyon Oblad — and all played in a season-opening loss against San Diego State. Gilliam then took every snap in a 37-19 loss to UNR last week.

Rogers seems the wild card in terms of when his chance beyond a few series here and there might come. One of the highest-rated recruits in TCU history, he played in one game for the Horned Frogs and committed to Arroyo in January as a redshirt sophomore.

But when just 60 percent of the offense has been installed — a number Arroyo gave this week — in a pandemic-defined season that included no spring ball, creating something from a film room to the field is the most valuable of strengths. Gilliam has to his coach’s liking.

“Production, simple as that,” Arroyo said. “You want to go out and install something you believe you can put around a group and have the quarterback be able to facilitate what you believe can be productive. Whoever has that production is a guy who gives us a chance.”

Serious toughness

In two games, Gilliam is 40 of 61 for 312 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. Mostly, UNLV is 0-2 because it can’t stop teams.

Gilliam has been sacked seven times and took some hits against visiting UNR that were heard in Washoe County. So he’s tough above the shoulder pads and below them.

He will have the option to continue his college career next season, given the NCAA’s decision to grant all fall sport student-athletes an additional year of eligibility because of the coronavirus pandemic. Maybe it’s here. Maybe it’s elsewhere.

“I’d make that decision after this season,” Gilliam said. “Confidence is a really big aspect of playing quarterback. If you’re thinking too much about who’s behind you, then you start to question yourself. I just focus on what I can do to get better every day and let the chips fall …”

He’s here. He’s starting. Who would have thought?

Um, not me.

Ed Graney is a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing and can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.