When it comes to using the long pass, they say you either live byit or die by it. UNLV quarterback Jason Thomas thrived on it, rackingup a career-high 277 yards.
“Every time we looked for the big play it paid off for us,” Thomassaid.
After both offenses stalled in the first quarter, Thomas and SanDiego State quarterback Lon Sheriff started looking deep — early.
On the Rebels’ first possession of the second quarter, Thomasshowed off his cannon. Throwing across his body, the left-handedquarterback fired a 53-yard bomb to Bobby Nero in the end zone forthe first score of the game.
The Aztecs answered with a 68-yard touchdown pass from Sheriff toDerrick Lewis to tie the score. Sheriff and Lewis connected again for78 yards on the next SDSU possession to set up a James Van touchdownrun. And two possessions later, Sheriff found Thomas Howard for 39yards to set up another Van score.
Not to be outdone, Thomas came back on the successive possessionto lead the Rebels 77 yards on seven plays. Thomas was 4-for-4passing on the drive, including strikes of 26 yards and 16 yards fora touchdown to Nate Turner.
Neither team had success on third downs in the first half. TheRebels were 2-for-8 on third down conversions in the half, while theAztecs went 1-for-6. So neither team waited that long to go for thebig play. All of them came on first or second down.
Thomas’ first touchdown pass came on a second-and-1. Sheriff’sfirst bomb came on the first play of the drive. The second deep ballto Lewis again came right off the bat. The completion to Howard wason first down and each of Thomas’ passes to Turner on the final drivewere on second downs.
“We had problems on third down,” Thomas said. “Coach (JohnRobinson) said, ‘If we’re going to go for it, we’re going to go forit big.'”
Turner was Thomas’ favorite target on the night, as Turner made 11catches for 158 yards.
“We knew we to come out here and make some plays,” Turner said.”(Last week) our passing game was able to get down the field and makebig plays. We knew their corners were struggling a bit in thesecondary, so we wanted to find a weakness and exploit it.”
Turner rose above SDSU cornerback Ricky Sharpe in the end zone tomake his touchdown reception.
“It just happened to be me to go up and get it,” he said.
Sharpe said the UNLV receivers are fast and had no reason to beafraid or intimidated.
“That’s what they usually live off, either rushing it or passingfor big plays,” he said. “We knew we could stop their run, so we knewthey would have to make big plays.
“They made them.”
With the SDSU defense able to hold UNLV to 61 rushing yards in thefirst three quarters, it was no surprise the Rebels had to resort tothrowing the ball often.
“If the running game wasn’t going to do it, we knew we had to doit in the air,” Thomas said. “They carried us the last three games;it was our time to carry them. Things didn’t go right for them on theground, so we had to step it up and we did.
“They were blitzing on third down, making me dish it off to a backor tight end. So we wanted to go with max protection and godownfield, and it worked for us.”
Said SDSU strong safety Will Demps: “We tried to contain him. Allhe did was make those long passes. That’s big plays, and big playswin games.”
