While the days count down until the first game of UNLV Rebel Football’s 2024-2025 season, the defense continues to work at this training camp to develop and gain depth.
A solid group of returning players gives the defense some stability, but the team received a new slate of talent via the transfer portal. Notable transfers include two talented student-athletes, Tony Grimes and Antonio Doyle Jr.
Grimes, a former 5-star cornerback, transferred from Texas A&M after a few seasons at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In his last season with the Tar Heels, he was credited with 36 total tackles, seven defended passes, and one forced fumble. Although Grimes transferred to Texas A&M in 2023, he did not play any snaps due to injury. He is healthy and is expected to be an important piece in the Rebels defense.
Doyle transferred to UNLV from Jackson State, where the defensive end finished fifth in tackles, with 36, through 11 games. Doyle made 2.5 sacks during his games as a Tiger. Doyle is also expected to play a critical role in adding defensive depth.
Defensive end Jalen Dixon was named part of the 2024 Preseason Second Team All-Mountain West, praised his new Rebel teammates, and emphasized the importance of practice and technique.
“Right now, it’s going good and we have some new guys,” Dixon said. “I’ve been in this scheme for two years now… just different schemes and showing them the things I’ve experienced with this offense, just trying to be better and tone what I see. And what can make them better at the same time, me too as well.”
Defensive line coach Ricky Logo says that working with the younger players and the transfers will create the needed depth in the defense. When asked specifically about Doyle, Logo praised him.
“Naturally talented young man. He’s been a great addition for us,” Logo said. “Long, lean, you know, here’s a kid that loves to get coached. Every little detail that we talk about, he’s focused on working on those things.”
Logo mentions how Doyle’s versatility as a defensive end will boost the Rebels in rush and pass protection.
“We’re putting him in schemes that allow him to do certain things for us, allow him to rush, not only that, he’s athletic enough to be able to drop in coverage,” Logo said.
“There’s so many things we can do with him.”
Barry Odom additionally recruited two more transfers on the defensive side of the ball from his former school of Arkansas, with defensive back Malik Chavis and linebacker Mani Powell.
Chavis played 30 games in five years for Arkansas. In 2023, Chavis played in eight games, with five total tackles, and recorded one sack. Additionally, the senior stands as a member of the 2020 Fall SEC Academic Honor Roll.
Powell spent two seasons at the SEC school. He played on special teams in 2022 but switched to defense in 2023, making five tackles in ten games. Two of his tackles came in a game against BYU.
Odom had great success in his first season as head coach recruiting from Arkansas. With the pickup of linebacker Jackson Woodard, he made an instant impact on the Rebels’ defense, leading the team with 55 tackles.
Woodard is the first Rebel in two decades to be on the Bronko Nagurski Watch List for college football’s top defensive player and will be the backbone of the UNLV defense in the 2024 season.
Fall training camp continues for the Rebels until Aug. 23, as the team prepares for the first game of the regular season against the University of Houston Cougars on Aug. 31.
