Seriously? The "Rebels"? The State of Nevada literally joined the Union in the Civil War! The City of Las Vegas didn't even exist until the 1900s! So why the Confederate symbolism?
To understand why UNLV students cast themselves as rebels, it helps to understand the civil war being waged in state politics when Southern Nevada’s university was founded, in 1957. The school, which began as a “branch” of the University of Nevada, in Reno, had to fight the political power of the north to become autonomous.
By the time they went I-A in 1978 students were upset about the racist connotations of their present mascot, a wolf in Confederate uniform named Beauregard. So they changed it to a plantation owner.
Further confusing things, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas—and in fact all the crap people associate with Las Vegas—isn't even in Las Vegas! (Mind: blown.)
If all this, plus "scarlet and gray" as school colors, sounds like a new low for dumbest university ever conceived, well, wait'll you see them play football!
How this works again:
- Readers predict the final score of a designated game by placing a guess in the comments, preferably in the format of [M score][hyphen][Opp score], for example "41-30" or "35-31 Michigan", or "28-24 Go Blue", or "38-0 Harbaugh!" etc.
- The three guys who read this part holler at people who post in a different format
- First person (by timestamp) to post a particular score has it.
- If you got it right, I contact you for an address by your MGoBlog account email, and you give me some time to get that to you.
- If nobody got it right or I don't hear from the winner(s) we push it to next week or let it go.
About Last Time:
A good ol'fashioned 35-7 beat-down of an overmatched team in Fielding Yost's big ol' hole in the ground. Nobody got it correct—one guy guessed 35-5, and I even mentioned if he won he'd forever by the guy who won by guessing a Brianesque score. But mGOlog had to guess the comparatively likely score of 35-6. Way to underrate their kicker, log. You get a print!
This Week's Game:
Yes they may look like the Buckeyes, but that's really UNLV in the Big House. Speaking of the Big House…
And on the Line:
JON FALK HAS ANOTHER BOOK! Big Jon isn't just part of the fabric of Michigan; he's the soul of it. From 1974 to 2014, the now retired equipment manager was there for every locker room speech, saw everything that could ever happen, handled every situation so well you'll feel bad about how unwell you comparatively do your job, and—teaser—fixed a few things that could have gotten very fouled up. Every former assistant and player to come back made his requisite stop by Falk to catch up. Filling one book with those stories was terribly hard because he had to leave so much out. Filling a second was easy until it also ran out of space long before it did content.
I have yet to read it because Brian keeps forgetting to give me my copy. But I just discovered today it's on Kindle so ta ta until this weekend.