Photo credit: sjsuspartans.com

By: Ana Kieu

San Jose State is gearing up for their Saturday game versus UNLV. This Mountain West match-up will count as the Spartans’ eighth game of the season. The Spartans are hoping for a win, and in case you missed it, you can watch head coach Brent Brennan’s press conference below.

Now, let’s get to the fun stuff. Here’s what you need to know about Saturday’s home game.

Saturday Funday
SJSU vs. UNLV
Saturday, October 27, 2018
CEFCU Stadium, San Jose, Calif.
3:30 pm PT
AT&T SportsNet

SJSU’s record
0-7, 0-3 Mountain West. Most recently, SJSU lost at San Diego State, 16-13, on October 20. The Spartans’ last win was a 20-17 victory over MW member Wyoming on November 25, 2017.

UNLV’s record
2-5, 0-3 Mountain West. The Rebels lost their fourth in a row to Air Force, 41-35, on October 19.

Series history
SJSU leads the series, 15-6-1. The Rebels won for the first time in eight meetings last year in a 41-13 triumph in Las Vegas. The Spartans posted a 30-24 MW victory in 2016 when the teams last met in CEFCU Stadium.

Television
AT&T SportsNet will provide play-by-play coverage of the SJSU-UNLV game. The live telecast is scheduled for 3:30 pm PT.

AT&T SportsNet is available on: DirecTV Channel 684, DISH Network Channel 414 and UVerse Channel 757.

Radio
KLIV (1590 AM, San Jose) originates SJSU football broadcasts. Justin Allegri calls the play-by-play. Kevin Richardson provides commentary. The UNLV broadcast begins at 3:00 pm PT with a pregame show.

SJSU’s network affiliate is KION (1460 AM/101.1 FM, Salinas).

KSJS (90.5 FM, San Jose) also will broadcast the UNLV game. The pre-game show begins at 3:15 pm PT.

Family affair
UNLV fullback Daniel Godfrey is the son of former SJSU linebacker Dan Godfrey, a two-time All-Big West Conference linebacker during the 1993 and 1994 seasons, respectively.

UNLV defensive backs coach Al Simmons was a graduate assistant on the 2005 SJSU staff led by Dick Tomey.

UNLV director of athletics Desiree Reed-Francois was SJSU’s director of compliance from 1999 through 2002.

SJSU’s defense turns in strong performance at SDSU
SDSU scored only one touchdown in its 16-13 victory over SJSU. The last time the Spartans limited an opponent to a single six-pointer in a game was a 13-0 loss to Hawaii on November 15, 2014 at CEFCU Stadium.

SJSU kept the SDSU offense in check yielding a season-low 293 yards–the first time since the November 26, 2016 win at Fresno State that the defense kept an opponent under 300 yards of total offense.

Improvements in pass defense
In SJSU’s last three games, opponents are completing just over 50% of their passing attempts (23-of-45) for five touchdowns. In the team’s first four games of the season, the Spartans gave up 13 passing touchdowns and no less than 309 passing yards per game.

Spartans end touchdown drought
SJSU’s third-quarter TD with 0:50 remaining on a Malike Roberson 1-yard run was the Spartans’ first TD since Thai Cottrell caught a 1-yard pass from quarterback Josh Love in the Colorado State game. SJSU was 13 seconds short of two complete games (1:59:47) of not scoring a TD.

Crawford’s field goals
Placekicker Bryce Crawford has made his last three field goal tries in the Army West Point and SDSU games. He’s 9-of-14 for the season with a season-long 49-yard FG against Army.

Papazian’s short punts
Punter Brian Papazian specializes in short punts. Of his seven punts in the three games he played, six landed inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. Fresno State punter Blake Cusick is the only MW punter in games played through October 20th to have at least 50% of his punts land inside the 20-yard line (18-of-30).

If you’re also a San Jose State basketball fan, you should make plans for the upcoming season by checking out the tweet below.