UTEP and UNLV will meet for a home-and-home to decide the top four-letter acronym school west of the Mississippi River but east of California. (Don’t expect them to call it that, though.)
According to contracts obtained by scheduling clearinghouse FBSchedules, UTEP will visit Las Vegas on Sept. 8, 2018, while UNLV will make a return visit to El Paso on Sept. 2, 2023.
The Rebels and Miners were ever-so-briefly bunkmates in the WAC, but never crossed paths in UNLV’s three years in the conference. The pair have met seven times previously, with UNLV holding a 5-2 advantage. UTEP won the most recent meeting, a 24-21 decision in El Paso in 1993.
The 2018 game fills UTEP’s non-conference schedule; the Miners will visit Tennessee the week after they head to Las Vegas and also host Northern Arizona and New Mexico State. UTEP still has one opening for 2023; with road trips to Arizona and New Mexico State on the docket, the Miners will presumably look for one more home game.
UNLV still has one opening on its ’18 slate, presumably looking for a home game on Sept. 15. The Rebels open the season at USC on Sept. 1 and visit Arkansas State on Sept. 22. Their 2023 schedule still has two openings with a home game against Vanderbilt scheduled in a previously announced home-and-home.
