UNLV holds off Northern Illinois 31-24 as Jackson Arnold throws 3 TDs and Mumu Bin-Wahad's red-zone pick stands tall

Northern Illinois came to Las Vegas without a win and left without one, but nobody inside Allegiant Stadium on Saturday night would have called it a mismatch.

UNLV beat Northern Illinois 31-24 in a Mountain West game that swung on a pair of red-zone interceptions, a missed field goal and a Rebels offense that needed only a handful of big plays to stay in front. Jackson Arnold threw three touchdown passes, Jai'Den Thomas broke a 60-yard touchdown run, and UNLV held on even though the Huskies piled up 493 yards and kept the ball for more than 35 minutes. The Rebels improved to 5-3 overall and 3-1 in the Mountain West. Northern Illinois, in its first season in the conference after leaving the MAC, fell to 0-8 and 0-4.

Fireworks from the first snap

UNLV did not waste any time. On the first play from scrimmage, Jackson Arnold hit Kayden McGee for a 75-yard touchdown, and the Rebels led 7-0 just 11 seconds into the night. If the idea was to remind the Huskies of the gap between the two records, it was an emphatic opening statement.

Northern Illinois answered like a team that had not noticed it was supposed to be overmatched. The Huskies went 75 yards in 10 plays, with Elijah Porter ripping off a 16-yard run, and Telly Johnson Jr. finished it with a 20-yard touchdown run. UNLV pushed back with a 12-play drive that stalled at the 3 and settled for Ramon Villela's 20-yard field goal. Then Taron Dickens found George Dimopoulos for 33 yards and DeAree Rogers for a 12-yard score, and Northern Illinois led 14-10 after one quarter.

It got better for the Huskies early in the second. Linebacker Brady Kerperin picked off Arnold, and JJ Schlenhardt's 27-yard field goal made it 17-10. For a team that had been outscored 56-21 at home a week earlier, a seven-point lead in Las Vegas was a genuine plot twist.

UNLV takes the punch and swings back

Arnold responded the way a starting quarterback is supposed to. The Rebels went 75 yards in seven plays, and Arnold found Keyan Burnett for a 31-yard touchdown to tie it at 17. Northern Illinois had a chance to go back in front, but Elias Rudolph sacked Dickens for an 8-yard loss and Schlenhardt's 47-yard try missed.

UNLV made the Huskies pay for that miss. Arnold scrambled for 18 yards, hit McGee for 22 more and capped an 11-play, 71-yard drive with a 2-yard touchdown pass to Taeshaun Lyons with 20 seconds left in the half. UNLV went into the locker room up 24-17.

The third quarter haymakers

Coming out of halftime, the Rebels needed only four plays to stretch the lead. Jai'Den Thomas broke a 60-yard touchdown run, and it was 31-17 with 11:18 left in the third quarter.

Northern Illinois answered in 1:47. Porter got the drive going with a 17-yard run, and Dickens dropped a 61-yard touchdown pass to Dimopoulos to cut it to 31-24. Then the game turned into a tug-of-war around the goal lines. UNLV drove deep into Northern Illinois territory late in the third, but Champ Smith III intercepted Arnold at the 1. The Huskies marched 86 yards the other way, converting a fourth-and-1 when Johnson rumbled for 24 yards, only for Mumu Bin-Wahad to pick off Dickens at the UNLV 10 and return it 53 yards.

The fourth quarter grind

The final quarter started as a field-position fight. Matt Choules boomed a 41-yard punt that pinned Northern Illinois at its own 1, then later added a 60-yarder, and Jake Ference answered with punts for the Huskies. Amari Washington sacked Arnold to stall one UNLV possession, and for long stretches neither offense could find the explosive play that had defined the first three quarters.

Northern Illinois got one more real chance to tie it. Starting at its own 31 with 6:22 to play, the Huskies moved into UNLV territory with help from a 15-yard personal foul on the Rebels, and Dickens hit Rogers for 11 yards to the UNLV 39. Porter ground out three short runs and Dickens scrambled for a first down at the 27. Then the drive stalled. Two incompletions and a 1-yard run left the Huskies facing fourth-and-9, and a holding penalty pushed it back to fourth-and-19. Schlenhardt's 54-yard field goal try was no good with 2:06 left. UNLV still had to protect the lead, and Arnold made sure the Huskies never got the ball back. A 9-yard completion moved the chains, Arnold kept the ball for 27 yards to the Northern Illinois 27, and Thomas ran twice for 14 more and another first down at the 13. With the Huskies out of timeouts, UNLV knelt out the clock.

The stars

Arnold finished 20-of-30 for 269 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions, and ran for more than 80 yards, including the 27-yard keeper that sealed it. The interceptions were costly, one at the Northern Illinois 1 and one that set up a Northern Illinois field goal, but the three touchdown throws covered 75, 31 and 2 yards and came at exactly the right moments. McGee caught five passes for 112 yards, most of it on the opening snap, and Thomas ran 16 times for 114 yards.

For Northern Illinois, Dickens threw for 253 yards and two touchdowns on 19-of-37 passing. Dimopoulos was the best player on the field for long stretches, catching seven passes for 127 yards and the 61-yard score. Rogers added seven catches for 96 yards and a touchdown, and Porter carried 21 times for 113 yards. Johnson averaged 9 yards a carry and scored the Huskies' first touchdown.

Defensively, Kyon Conyers led Northern Illinois with eight tackles. Tony-Louis Nkuba had nine for UNLV, and Bin-Wahad finished with eight tackles to go with the interception that may have saved the game.

The numbers that matter

Northern Illinois won most of the categories that usually decide games. The Huskies had 24 first downs to UNLV's 22, ran for 240 yards at 6.3 per carry, converted 9 of 17 third downs and held the ball for 35:09. They lost anyway, because the Rebels made their big plays count and the Huskies left points at the goal line and on the kicking tee. Two missed field goals, from 47 and 54 yards, and an interception at the UNLV 10 added up to as many as 13 points in a seven-point game. The full breakdown is in ESPN's box score (opens in a new tab).

What it means

UNLV moves to 5-3, 3-1 in conference play, and stays in the thick of the Mountain West race. This was not a clean performance, and the Rebels were outplayed on the stat sheet by a winless team, but a road to a conference title is built on nights like this one too. The Rebels will want a much cleaner four quarters when Wyoming visits on Nov. 7, though a win over a team that kept coming is still a win.

Northern Illinois falls to 0-8 and 0-4 under interim coach Rob Harley. A week after a 56-21 home loss to Hawaii, this was a very different team: physical up front, balanced on offense and good enough to lead in the first half. It still was not enough. The Huskies visit San Jose State on Nov. 7, still looking for the first win.

The last word

The Huskies outgained UNLV, outrushed UNLV and owned the clock. The Rebels owned the moments that mattered: the first snap, the last seconds of the first half, the first possession of the third quarter and the red-zone interception that ended Northern Illinois' best chance to tie. On a night with little margin, that was enough.

Sources: ESPN box score and play-by-play, Northern Illinois Athletics and Undrafted's previous coverage. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Northern Illinois Athletics.