Feb. 2, 2005

LAS VEGAS - UNLV's first football recruiting class under new head coach Mike Sanford was announced on the initial day of the national signing period Wednesday and could go down as the school's largest ever with no less than 29 student-athletes making up the list.

Arguably the most decorated class in Rebel Football history from top to bottom, the group includes a school-record nine PrepStar All-Region selections.

"Our staff did a great job of uncovering guys in a short period of time," said Sanford, who became UNLV's eighth head coach in history on Dec. 6, 2004. "We targeted players who could help us, got them here on visits and had an excellent success rate of ultimately signing guys who came in. As a result of that success, we ended up signing a large, quality class."

The impressive haul, which includes four mid-year transfers, is highlighted by arguably the program's best-ever class of players from Las Vegas area high schools.

"What we did in Las Vegas was undeniably positive," Sanford said. "We made a big push to recruit local guys and ended up with five and legitimately beat a lot of people for them, including some Pac-10 schools."

This year's class tilts heavily toward offense with a total of 16 players projected for that side of the ball: 4 QB, 4 WR, 3 RB, 3 OL and 2 TE. The class includes nine pure defenders: 5 DB, 3 DL, 1 LB to go with three players listed as athletes or combination players while one punter rounds out the group.

The list features a stunning 22 true freshmen, just six junior-college players and one four-year transfer (Jacob Hales) who returned from serving an LDS mission. Three of the JC players signed during December's early period and are currently enrolled at UNLV and will take part in spring practice, which starts March 29. Also, two "grayshirts" (Josh Smith and Kameron Kranz) were originally part of last year's signing class but enrolled last month and will be true freshmen this fall.

"I believe we filled some holes by getting the mid-year guys that we had to have," Sanford said. "We are going to sign JC players just for specific needs. We feel from a developmental standpoint, we want to recruit high school guys whenever possible. And make no mistake -- we are not waiting around -- we want to win now. I would say about 10 of these freshmen are going to come in and compete for time this season and be able to help us, especially at the receiver position."

The bulky group consists of student-athletes whose hometowns are spread among seven states across four time zones: 11 from California, six from Arizona, five from Nevada, four from Florida, and one each from Oregon, Georgia and Texas.

"Las Vegas, Arizona and Southern California are going to make up our base of recruiting just for proximity reasons. However, with (new offensive coordinator) Noah Brindise's background in Florida, we were also able to get three high school kids out of that talent-rich state that we are extremely excited about."

The complete list of UNLV's 2005 football signees follows:

*Enrolled at UNLV January 2005
#Originally a member of 2004 recruiting class

Go to Rebel Recruit Central