Bye week gave us chance to work, see local prep talent

Last week, our program used every day of its bye week, whether it was practicing as a team or our staff recruiting to make our team better moving forward. I've never been a big fan of off weeks, but we made good work of it. Every play we can get on the practice field is valuable for a team that is as young and inexperienced as ours.

I had a chance to stay in town and take in several high school games late in the week, and our staff got a great reception everywhere it traveled. As I've said since Day One, there is really good high school football in Nevada, and in Las Vegas in particular. As a staff, we comb through Southern Nevada trying to find the kids that can help us. We want the Las Vegas kids who can compete in the Mountain West to stay home and help us build a strong college football team in their hometown.

Now we get to play our first home game in a 35-day stretch, with Colorado State coming to town. That's a long time to be away, and we're excited to play in front of our home crowd Saturday at 3 p.m. I'm a big fan of college football day games, and this will be our first such game here as a coaching staff. It will be nice to not have to sit around the hotel all day waiting to get going, and our fans can get out there early and have a great time.

This looks as if it will be a good game. Both of these teams feel a sense of urgency about getting a win this weekend. Colorado State is well coached and does a lot of good things offensively, defensively and in the kicking game. Last year, they got after us up in Fort Collins and got a big win. They did some great things with formations against us, and we have to make sure we get lined up against them Saturday.

We are now at the midway point of the 2011 season and, with the exception of one game, we've been a decided underdog every week, so we knew it would be an uphill battle throughout the year. But we're excited about the chance to go out and compete in the second half of the season and work to get more wins.

Our seniors want to leave the program in good shape, and our underclassmen realize that it's not where we are right now, but where we are going. I can tell you that we have a unified group in our locker room that is fired up to play football.

Remember that it's an unusual kickoff time of 3 p.m. Come out to Sam Boyd Stadium and enjoy some college football action. We hope to see you there.

Go Rebels!

Bobby Hauck writes a weekly column on UNLV football for Rebels Report.