After beginning the season against what is likely to be a stout Utah defense, Nico Iamaleava and the UCLA Bruins will face UNLV’s defense in Week 2. It won’t be a cake walk for the Bruins, with the Rebels owning one of the best defenses in the Mountain West Conference.
UNLV allowed a conference-low 21.29 points per game last season, but the Rebels will have a new defensive coordinator in 2025. New UNLV head coach Dan Mullen hired Zach Arnett for the position. Before the start of his first season on the job, Arnett resigned for personal reasons, leaving Paul Guenther as the Rebels’ interim DC heading into 2025.
2025 will be Guenther’s first with UNLV, after spending 2024 as the defensive run game coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL. Even with the success that UNLV’s defense had last season, Guenther will be working with a largely new group.
With a new head coach and DC in place, players both left and joined the UNLV program this offseason but the Rebels should still field one of the top Mountain West defenses again this season.
UNLV had all the recipes of a good defense in 2024, they were solid in the red zone, averaged three sacks per game and had the best turnover margin in the Mountain West. The questions are how much of that will they be able to repeat in 2025 with a new staff in order and how they’ll fare against a Big Ten opponent like the UCLA Bruins.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: UNLV had an outstanding defense in 2024, but everything has changed since then
Reporting by Dylan McNeill, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
