The Idaho State Bengals at UNLV Rebels football game in 2025 has been moved to Week Zero, both schools announced Friday.
The Idaho State-UNLV game, originally scheduled for Week 3 on Saturday, Sept. 13, will now be played on Saturday, Aug, 23, 2025. The Rebels will host the Bengals at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The NCAA approved UNLV’s waiver request to reschedule the game for Week Zero, which was necessary due to the championship boxing match between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford at the Rebels’ home venue, Allegiant Stadium.
“The World Championship Boxing Match is important to Las Vegas, and the impact it will have on tourism is unmatched,” UNLV Director of Athletics Erick Harper said. “Las Vegas is the Sports and Entertainment Capital, and we are a part of this amazing epicenter. As community members and an institution that works closely with many of the city’s great constituents, we felt it was important to request a waiver to show our commitment to the community. We looked at multiple alternatives to make it happen, and moving to Week Zero was the only possibility and also the most logical, if a waiver could be approved.”
Both schools will now have an open date/bye week on Saturday, Sept. 13, which will be the first of three for UNLV and the first of two for Idaho State this season.
The kickoff time and television coverage for the game will be announced at a later date.
UNLV also announced one additional kickoff time for the 2025 season today. The Rebels’ home game against the New Mexico Lobos on Saturday, Nov. 1 will kickoff at 3:00pm ET / noon PT. Television coverage for the game will be announced at a later date.
FOOTBALL SCHEDULES
This game has zero entertainment value but isn’t it interesting that Las Vegas can move UNLV out of their home stadium because of the impact to tourism. As I said earlier, it would be possible to put a better game on week 0. This is not the one.
Support move
Lol dude come on man there’s almost zero games on week zero anyways I’ll take this over nothing. Who cares about the quality of game when week zero technically shouldn’t even be a thing
Not going to let naysayers get to me.
This is actually a relatively exciting game for week zero. Idaho State has an extremely high powered offense and slings the piss out of the ball. Entertainment value is there. Plus, give us all the week zero games
God Bless You Your mom.
Comment gets Thumbs Up!!!
Nice Job!!!
@Devin, what I was more referring to was the posted story regarding ESPN2 moving Incarnate Word- Nicholls State to air on their channel for week zero. At that point, I made the suggestion that they should have moved South Dakota State-Montana State to that date to get a much higher quality game on rather than a top 25 against a Southland also-ran. Why do they play a conference game on week 0?
Since the last time the ben gals were at least a .500 team dates all the way back to 2018 and honestly they can sling whatever they want from the ball for Your mom. This will not be a competitive game and the pity of it is that UNLV plays in the “sports and entertainment capital” and can so easily be moved out of a home football game when there are probably a lot more alternatives to scheduling a fight that has already been choreographed for a predetermined winner.
This is wonderful news!
Lolololololol
Do you have a Crystal ball? How do you know ID isn’t competitive and will give 100% to make a strong show. At least it’s a team of young man that aren’t paid to play and just may surprise you.
@Gary, first off, this is Idaho State, not Idaho. You don’t need a crystal ball to see that since the turn of the century ISU is 79-185 with a 0-33 mark against FBS competition, which coincidentally includes 2 losses to Idaho. The oblong ball bounces funny, so who is to say this won’t look competitive, but I don’t see much improvement on the 52-21 result the last time they met in 2022.
is Sluka coming back for this game or is he still boycotting?
Coming back from JMU?
This could be a great experimental game for promotion-relegation! If Idaho State wins they get promoted to FBS MW and UNLV relegated to FCS Big Sky!
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Now that would make it a lot more exciting, wouldn’t it.