Mike Grant closing in on starting corner spot?

ELY — My hotel room won’t be ready here for another hour or so. The good news is that thanks to modern technology I can jog down a few notes from this morning’s Rebel football practice at Broadbent Park here while sitting at a picnic table under the shade of a large oak tree while also enjoying the 75-degree weather and a nice cool breeze.

* The star of the morning practice was undoubtedly junior college cornerback Mike Grant, a fall enrollee from Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif.

JC transfer Mike Grant starred at corner on Friday morning.

Grant had several impressive pass breakups during various passing drills and also had an interception during an 11-on-11 passing drill, jumping in front of Jerriman Robinson on an out route for what would have been an easy pick six.  He and another junior college corner, Warren Ziegler, played on the first team defense most of the morning.

I asked UNLV head coach Mike Sanford if we would be seeing No. 25 (Grant) starting at corner on Sept. 5 against Sacramento State at Sam Boyd Stadium and he just chuckled.

“It’s too early (but) that’s kind of a deduction a lot of people have,” Sanford said. “It’s too early, though. We still have a lot of competition going on at that position. We have personnel groups. We have regular and we have nickel. He and Warren Zeigler were playing with the one’s in nickel and dime today but that’s an ongoing thing. We won’t make any of those decisions until guys are consistently people. You can’t have a bad day.”

After his impressive practice, several teammates joked that Grant should prepare for wearing a black jersey, emblematic as the top defensive performer in practice.

And if I were a betting man, I would put a small wager on Mr. Grant starting at corner for the Rebels this season. …

* Speaking of corners, junior Quinton Pointer, who gutted his way through most of last season with a bad elbow, also played well today at linebacker in the team’s dime package.

“He’s had some good days up here,” Sanford said.

* Ho hum. Remember “The Catch” that Western High product Phillip Payne had to help the Rebels upset Arizona State last year? Well Payne had another one-handed beauty today, reaching out to his left while falling backward with corner Kenny Brown closing in on him. And he made it look easy … again.

“He’s a very good player,” Sanford said of Payne. “The one thing we need him to become is to continue to improve and be an all down and all field player. He’s obviously very good when it comes to laying the ball up there and making a play in the end zone.”

* Quarterbacks were not “live” during a third down drill featuring the No. 1 offense against the No. 1 defense. And defensive end Malo Taumua wasn’t exactly too thrilled about that fact.

After safety Terrance Lee pulled up as a scrambling Omar Clayton ran out of bounds, a fired-up Taumua screamed at Lee: “Bleep that! Tackle his (butt)! That’s bull (fill in the blank)!”

“I’m sure Malo would like to see Omar stay healthy for the start of the season,” Sanford said.

Sanford added that he will make his quarterbacks live for at least part of Saturday morning’s big 10 a.m. scrimmage here.

“A portion they’ll be live,” he said. “Right now we just don’t know what portion it will be.”

* Congratulations to former Rebel wide receiver Casey Flair who announced on his Facebook page last night that he has signed a contract to play for the Las Vegas Locomotives of the United Football League.

* It was just one pass-rushing drill but redshirt freshman offensive tackle Yusef Rodgers did a nice job of tying up all-MWC linebacker Jason Beauchamp.