UNLV balances wins, finances in football scheduling
UNLV cornerback and Southern California native Jericho Flowers heads into familiar territory in two weeks to take on a team he grew up following, going against players he has known for years.
But Flowers and his Rebels teammates will be walking into anything but a friendly atmosphere when they enter Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Sept. 1 to open the season.
They will be asked to put up a respectable showing in a game that few outside the UNLV locker room believe they have any chance to win. But the athletic department, which will cash a $1.15 million check, will come out financial winners.
UNLV, like other Group of Five programs, relies on such money games to help balance its approximate $39 million budget. USC has taken in more than $100 million in revenue each of the past four years.
It’s like a neighborhood grocer competing with Walmart.
That’s life outside the Power Five. Just in the Mountain West alone this season, Colorado State reportedly will receive $2 million to play at Florida, Utah State $1.4 million for traveling to Michigan State and New Mexico $1.2 million for a trip to Wisconsin.
For UNLV, the challenge is to play a schedule that helps achieve such financial gains while making up the expected loss with at least one game the Rebels should win. They have two such games this season — Sept. 8 against Texas-El Paso and Sept. 15 against Prairie View A&M, both at Sam Boyd Stadium. UNLV concludes its nonconference schedule Sept. 22 at Arkansas State, which has made seven consecutive bowl trips and is likely to be favored.
“We want to position our teams for postseason play across the board,” UNLV athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois said. “In football, we balance competitive positioning, recruiting, opportunities for our student-athletes and location for both students and fans.”
The game at USC, in particular, checks those boxes.
“We have dozens of student-athletes from the Southern California area on our team, and the game at USC will give them an opportunity to play in front of their families and friends,” Reed-Francois said. “Additionally, showcasing our program and university on national television (Pac-12 Network) is always valuable.
“We have invested in personnel, recruiting and student-athlete welfare, and moving forward, with the new stadium, our goal is to provide our fans with top-quality opponents both home and away.”
UNLV moves into the new stadium with the Raiders in 2020, so the scheduling dynamic will change some as well. That facility already is helping the Rebels bring more name programs to Las Vegas for home-and-home arrangements rather than force UNLV to travel for single games.
The Rebels will host California in 2020 and 2026, Arizona State in 2020, Iowa State in 2021, Vanderbilt in 2023, Brigham Young in 2024 and UCLA in 2025.
If the new stadium helps deliver the kind of revenue UNLV hopes for, the days of having to play at USC without a return trip could be numbered. In recent years, the Rebels also received big paychecks for games at Michigan ($1 million in 2015) and Ohio State ($1.3 million in 2017).
Coach Tony Sanchez said his now more experienced team can draw on those Big Ten trips when it plays the Trojans.
“I think when you’re young and you’re a freshman or sophomore and haven’t played in those atmospheres, you can get a little overwhelmed and a little jacked up,” he said. “But our guys, some of them have been to ‘The Big House’ (Michigan), they’ve been to Ohio State, they’ve played UCLA in the Rose Bowl.”
For players such as Flowers, playing USC is an opportunity to return home and show UNLV can compete on such a stage.
“It’s going to be a dream come true to be able to play against them,” Flowers said. “For me to go out there and give my all, it’s going to be amazing.”
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Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.