Wound-up Sanchez ready for UNLV opener at Northern Illinois

The 24-minute news conference was nearing a close Tuesday, but it wasn't winding down.

UNLV football coach Tony Sanchez never winds down. At least it seems like he never does.

No reason to lose energy now. Not this close to game time.

The Rebels play their first game under Sanchez at 4:30 p.m. PDT Saturday when they visit Northern Illinois.

"All the talking ends Saturday," Sanchez said. "All the this and all the that and all the speculation and all the picks, they mean nothing. You go out and you play the game. There's a winner and a loser, and that's fantastic. That's America."

The Rebels might be 22-point underdogs, but as Sanchez noted, he believes his team "has a fighting chance." What's truly important is whether his players believe it.

Judging by comments on social media and in interviews, the players have bought in to Sanchez's plan. Several tweeted this week their excitement that the season was about to begin.

"The guys in the locker room are excited," senior quarterback Blake Decker said at the news conference. "We're just ready to go out there and strap it on and get going."

At the same time, no one said beating Northern Illinois would be easy.

The Huskies were picked Monday by the Mid-American Conference coaches to win the West Division. It's a familiar position for Northern Illinois, which has won the MAC championship three of the past four seasons.

Northern Illinois returns 14 offensive and defensive starters from last season's team, which went 11-3.

Among those is junior quarterback Drew Hare, who passed for 2,322 yards and 18 touchdowns last season and rushed for 900 yards and eight TDs. His first career start occurred against UNLV, and Hare passed for 285 yards and rushed for 74 while accounting for four touchdowns in the Huskies' 48-34 victory at Sam Boyd Stadium.

Northern Illinois is the beginning of a rough opening stretch for the Rebels, who face UCLA at home Sept. 12 and visit Michigan on Sept. 19.

As for Sanchez, he spent the offseason in constant promotion mode, be it to the Las Vegas community or to recruits. Then August arrived and his focus shifted to preparing for the 12-game season.

And now that season is nearly here, with Sanchez making the leap from Bishop Gorman High School. This is his chance to prove the job can get done at UNLV, and the game at Northern Illinois represents a dream moment for the former high school coach.

"The great thing about football is once you start going through the process, you kind of forget about all those emotions," Sanchez said. "Believe me, I feel blessed every day. We walk out there (to practice), and I say, 'Wow, I do this for a living. It's pretty neat.' But I did the same thing last year and the year before.

"It's been a real privilege to be a football coach, and (I'm) excited now to be coaching college football. We've got a great group of kids and a wonderful town, and we're excited to go get it done."

* NOTES — Sanchez's weekly radio show is Wednesdays from 6 to 7 p.m. on KWWN-AM (1100 AM, 98.9 FM). It's a live show that takes place at Born and Raised Tavern & Lounge at 7260 S. Cimarron Road. ... Junior fullback Marc Philippi, a Gorman graduate who missed all of training camp, is out another five to seven weeks with a broken right foot.

Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow him on Twitter: @markanderson65.