Barry Odom was still nitpicking UNLV’s performance Monday afternoon.

The Rebels picked up their second win over a Big 12 program last Friday in a 23-20 win at Kansas. The passing game struggled, but Holy Cross transfer quarterback Matthew Sluka rushed for 124 yards.

“We didn’t play very good and still found a way to to win the game,” Odom said.

The Rebels have won three games to start a season for the first time since 1984. They’re ranked No. 25 in the USA Today Coaches Poll, their first appearance in one of the two major polls since moving to Division I in 1978.

UNLV has nine games remaining, including games in Las Vegas against Syracuse and Boise State. It’s a long season. But the new 12-team College Football Playoff brings hope to postseason dreams. Northern Illinois, Toledo and Memphis have also found early season success and appear to be contending for the Group of Five bid which will go to the highest-ranked conference champion.

“For all of college football when you start things, you’re doing it on hope, vision and belief,” Odom said. “With the 12-team playoff, there is still, for a vast majority of teams, there’s still hope that there’s an opportunity that they can be in that conversation.”

How Barry Odom is using ‘SEC blueprint’ at UNLV

Odom arrived in Las Vegas in December 2022 after three seasons as the defensive coordinator at Arkansas. In Year One, UNLV won nine games and played in a bowl game for the first time since the 2013 campaign.

The former Missouri head coach has found success early in his tenure with the Rebels. He’s done it by mixing the transfer portal with high school recruiting — a balancing act every college football program is trying to perfect. Odom is proud that UNLV signed 48 high school recruits in his first two classes. But the Rebels also added 21 players in the transfer portal, including Sluka and Campbell transfer quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams. Former Central Arkansas running back Kylin Williams scored the winning touchdown against Kansas.

He calls it an “SEC blueprint,” drawn from his experiences under Gary Pinkel and Sam Pittman.

“I do not believe in the world of college football anymore,” Odom said. “There aren’t rebuild projects. You don’t you don’t have time for that. Nobody wants to hear that.”

Part of that has been utilizing NIL. With Las Vegas as the backdrop, the Rebels can offer one of the more aggressive NIL programs in the Group of Five. The majority of teams at the level are working with budgets ranging from $500,000 to $1 million annually. A source told On3 that UNLV is “one of the top Group of Five teams when it comes to NIL.”

Something that differentiates the Rebels from other college athletics programs is each sport has a foundation. Opposed to Texas A&M’s 12th Man Foundation which covers the entire athletic department, the UNLV Football Foundation is segmented for Rebels football.

That’s helped UNLV identify which boosters have a history of supporting football in the NIL Era. But like most Group of Five programs, NIL is crucial for retaining talent. UNLV lost quarterback and Mountain West Freshman of the Year Jayden Maiava to the portal last offseason.

“No offense or disrespect to anybody that has left, but we feel like there are a lot of really, really good football players out there,” Odom said. “At UNLV, what we have to offer for a guy looking to finish their career in one or two years — it’s pretty appealing.

“… We’re aggressive in the NIL world and the city of Vegas, but we also understand we’re not going to compete if that’s the only thing they’re looking for. We’re not going to be able to be able to compete with some of the schools that have a bankroll of unlimited resources. That’s not us.”

Mixing Go-Go offense with Barry Odom’s experience

Barry Odom was fired from Missouri the morning after the last regular season game of the 2019 season. The memory is still fresh nearly five years later. Now at UNLV, Odom admits it was a learning experience.

“I hated getting fired,” he said. “Terrible for my family, and nobody wants that. But we did do some good things. We qualified for three straight bowls. Things just didn’t work out.”

That has led him to attack immediately at UNLV, and why he’s adamant the idea of a rebuild is dead in college football. It also helped him arrive at hiring Brennan Marion. Odom can’t remember the exact year he met the now Rebels offensive coordinator and former Tulsa wide receiver, but it was at an American Football Coaches Association Convention.

Odom remembers Marion’s offensive acumen and philosophy were impressive. By then, Marion had developed his Go-Go Offense, which utilizes an uptempo offense with multiple formations.

“I was even more impressed when I started trying to piece it (Go-Go Offense) together through a defensive lens on trying to fit it the run game and then some of the things on ability to stretch and put players in conflict,” Odom recalled.

The initial pick at offensive coordinator for UNLV was Bobby Petrino, who accepted the job but left after 21 days for Texas A&M.

Marion was always in the mix for the coordinator job, Odom said. But Petrino’s decision ultimately proved to be a critical win for UNLV as the Rebels pivoted to the Marion. The Rebels ranked No. 1 in the Mountain West Conference in scoring, third downs, touchdowns scored, rushing touchdowns and the red zone in 2023.

Can Rebels contend for College Football Playoff berth?

The Pac-12 Conference reemerged from realignment peril last week, swiping Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State away from the Mountain West. UNLV has not scored an invitation yet, however, that could change as the Pac-12 needs to reach eight schools before July 2026 to meet the the NCAA’s minimum number of schools to qualify as an FBS conference.

What the status of the Mountain West is when those four schools do leave in the summer of 2026 is unknown. Does it pull schools from the FCS to the league? And does UNLV want to be part of that? With a football program on the rise based out of Las Vegas, the Rebels are appealing.

“Do they have a TV deal in place?” Odom said when asked about UNLV’s future. “What does that look like? I am a firm believer in let’s go put our action on the field, see how many we can win, see how good we can get, and everything else will take care of itself.”

When Cincinnati crashed the four-team College Football Playoff in 2021, it delivered hope to the Group of Five. Now with the 12-team playoff, being perfect is not a requirement. UNLV is 3-0 and if the Rebels beat Syracuse on Oct. 4 at Allegiant Stadium, they will have beat three Power 4 programs in nonconference play.

First is the conference opener against Fresno State on Sept. 28, though.

“If you look to the strength of schedule, your conference champion and you won your out-of-conference games which were against power five teams, you do that and you’re positioning yourself for the picture and the prizer to get much larger,” Odom said. “We talk about those things because I know that our players see it, they hear it. Let’s be open and honest about it. Let’s get into the month of November and be playing for something really, really big.”

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