UNLV football coach Arroyo has own connection to UNR

Numbers. Athletes never forget them.

It has been 19 years and yet Marcus Arroyo gave it the ol’ college try. Came pretty close, too.

“A long time and many hits ago,” he said. “I want to say 21-of-24 or 23-of-28 or something …”

Try this: 21-of-26 for 476 yards and five touchdowns.

“That’s a good day,” he said.

A historic one.

Arroyo will lead UNLV’s football team against UNR on Saturday night at Allegiant Stadium as a first-year head coach, but it was November of 2001 when he torched the Wolf Pack as quarterback for San Jose State.

A different stage

He would set the NCAA Division I-A single-game record for passing efficiency for a quarterback who attempts between 26 and 49 passes. The Spartans beat visiting UNR 64-45, a crazy night that saw Wolf Pack wide receiver and future NFL player Nate Burleson catch 12 passes for 326 yards … and no touchdowns.

The teams combined for 1,640 yards of total offense, an NCAA record until 2016.

“I remember being prepared for the game and that we were in rhythm,” Arroyo said. “We had some good players that year, a few who had a cup a tea in the NFL at wide receiver and offensive line. Had a good group around me.”

He is on a different stage when it comes to UNR now, in a much different position at a school whose dislike for all things blue is painfully sharp. Or perhaps that’s more about the innocent folks who were struck in the head with full soda bottles flying from the UNR stands following last year’s 33-30 overtime win by UNLV in Reno.

A little Silver State sophistication up north.

Arroyo has seen the good and bad and crazy of college rivalries at previous coaching stops. Oklahoma-Oklahoma State. Oregon-Oregon State. Now, red-blue, north-south, new $2 billion NFL stadium … concrete field?

“We’ll play them in the Caesar’s Palace parking lot,” UNR coach Jay Norvell told the Nevada Appeal. “It doesn’t matter.”

I can see it now. Go deep to the Roman statue, cut to the fountains, jump in and look for the ball.

Rivalries aren’t born and nurtured in some harmonious, uncomplicated manner. It takes decades upon decades to ratchet up all the good stuff like vile and abhorrence. Arroyo has been UNLV’s coach for a second.

He’s far more concerned — and should be given how the Rebels performed in a 34-6 season-opening loss to San Diego State — about improving things on the field than getting overly caught up in the latest battle for the 545-pound Fremont cannon.

“I think it’s a really important game,” Arroyo said. “Rivalry games are important for our group and the pageantry of football and the collective spirit of two cities. There’s a lot of pride. But there’s an inherent danger in hanging everything on it … You’ve got to make sure that you don’t make it all or nothing.”

History of it

The pandemic hasn’t allowed for many of those passionate about keeping the cannon red to chat with Arroyo about the history of it all. So here’s the Cliffs Notes version: John C. Fremont, that rascal of an American explorer, abandoned the 19th-century howitzer in a Sierra Nevada snow bank during an 1843 expedition.

A replica of it now lives in the center of the Fertitta Football Complex — at least in those years following a UNLV victory in the series — and was moved to the middle of the team’s locker room this week.

It’s the heaviest and most expensive ($10,000) of college football trophies. And Arroyo, a guy whose best sport didn’t even involve throwing touchdowns, has his own form of history against those wearing blue.

“I was a better baseball player,” Arroyo said. “I didn’t play football until I got to high school. I was a shortstop/pitcher and point guard so in a small town, the dad of the baseball team and basketball team probably also said, ‘Hey, the quarterback for football is the pitcher/shortstop kid.’”

He kept on playing and one November night in 2001 torched UNR by setting an NCAA record for pass efficiency. Now, he will coach UNLV against the Wolf Pack.

Somewhere in there, the rivalry Saturday welcomes a new branch to its tree.

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.