GAME 4: Non-Conference Road Finale

UNLV REBELS (1-2/1-0 Mountain West)
At
Akron (1-2/0-0 Mid-American Conference)

DATE:  Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026
KICKOFF: 9:00 am PT 
SITE:  InfoCision Stadium (30,000/Artificial), Akron, OH
TV:  ESPN+ (Anthony Lima & Patrick Murray)
RADIO:  ESPN 1100 AM & 100.9 FM (Matt Neverett, Caleb Herring & Steve Cofield)

SATURDAY'S PREVIEW...
Playing a third straight road game for the first time in a dozen years, UNLV (1-2/1-0) heads to Akron (1-2/0-0) for the first time in half a century on Saturday ... UNLV will already play in its fourth time zone of the young season and will have traveled a combined 6,089 miles after trips to Hawaii, Texas and Ohio in the first month of the campaign ... This will mark the Rebels' fifth time playing in the state of Ohio but the second straight season (at Akron 1976, at Toledo 2002, at Ohio State 2017 and at Miami 2025) ... Last September, head coach Dan Mullen delivered the program its first-ever win in 15 all-time trips to the Eastern Time Zone with a 41-38 victory at Miami in Oxford ... The Rebels have won six of their last seven true road games against non-Mountain West teams. In fact, UNLV has more overall road victories than any other team in college football since the start of the 2024 season with 12 ... Before having last week off, UNLV lost at North Texas, 44-6, and failed to score at least 20 points in a regular-season game for the first time since falling 35-7 at eventual national champion Michigan in the second game of 2023. That school-record streak, which ended at 36 games, was by far the longest active such streak in the FBS ... UNLV, which is going five weeks between home games, will be at Allegiant Stadium next week when it hosts Cal of the ACC for the fi rst time ever. 

REBELS vs. ZIPS NOTES... 
This will mark only the second-ever meeting between these teams and the longest drought -- 50 years -- between games vs. one opponent in UNLV history, shattering the record of 44 seasons between dates facing Prairie View A&M (1974-2018) ... The only previous meeting came in the first round of the 1976 NCAA Division II Playoffs as the host Zips ended the Rebs' successful Bicentennial season with a 27-6 quarterfinal victory ... That UNLV team finished 9-3 in the senior season of star quarterback Glenn Carano, with all three losses coming on the road ... Former head coach Tony Knap's program would spend one more season in D-II before moving up to Division I in 1978 ... UNLV has two current players who graduated from Buckeye State high schools: senior LB Cam Santee (Avon HS) and true freshman Eli Sanchez (Perkins HS in Sandusky) ... UNLV is 4-4 all-time in games vs. teams from Ohio (2-1 vs. Toledo, 1-1 vs. Ohio, 1-0 vs. Miami, 0-1 vs. Ohio State and 0-1 vs. Akron) ... The Rebels are 8-6 all-time vs. teams from the Mid-American Conference at the time of the game,  including two such meetings just last fall (downing the Redhawks in September and then losing to Ohio in December's Frisco Bowl).