Las Vegas, NV -- (Sports Network) - One of three programs in the Mountain West Conference currently ranked in the top-20, the 12th-ranked TCU Horned Frogs try to hold on to first place in the league standings as they encounter the UNLV Rebels at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

TCU, which leads the conference with a perfect 5-0 mark, has been a model of consistency in 2008, except for the lopsided loss to nationally-ranked Oklahoma (35-10) on the road during the last week of September. Since then, the Frogs have posted four straight wins, including a dominating 54-7 triumph over a woeful Wyoming squad last Saturday. Again, except for the defeat in Norman, TCU has held all but one opponent (Stanford) to a touchdown or less this season.

As for the Rebels, they gave one of those other ranked MWC programs a run for their money last week when they bowed to BYU in a 42-35 final on the road in Provo. The loss was the fourth in a row for a UNLV squad that had begun the season with three wins in four tries to give the players and fans some hope for the future. This game is the first of three straight at home for the Rebels, who have New Mexico and Wyoming coming into Vegas, with a road date versus San Diego State set to close out the regular season for a UNLV squad that has already exceeded its win total from each of the last three campaigns.

Last year, TCU posted a 34-10 win in Fort Worth over the Rebels, marking the team's fifth win in six tries against the Sin City dwellers.

Jimmy Young caught a mere five passes last Saturday, yet the Wyoming defense made him look like a superstar with an incredible 226 yards and three touchdowns, setting a new school record for receiving yards in a single game. "It feels great," Young said after his record-setting performance, "but it is something that I'm going to have to forget about for the next couple of weeks and wait until the season is over, because now my focus has to be on UNLV."

Young was fed by quarterback Andy Dalton who completed just 16 passes, but still came away with an incredible 334 yards and four touchdowns. Dalton also added one of the team's two rushing touchdowns on the way to posting a pass efficiency rating of an unbelievable 260.3.

TCU is far from a passing team, averaging just 188.2 ypg through the air, yet Dalton made sure that he sent enough of a message to the rest of the MWC that he does have the potential to break out once in a while. Thanks to the team's effort against Wyoming and their 67 points versus Stephen F. Austin early in the season, the Frogs are currently second in the conference and 20th in the nation in scoring with 35.8 ppg.

The nation's leading run defense, now giving up 31.2 ypg, was victimized by a Wyoming team that simply could not compete with the Horned Frogs. Devin Moore pounded away for a game-high 114 yards and a touchdown, the first time an opposing runner has come away with 100 yards rushing against the Frogs this season. Even though Moore managed to find some holes in the defense, TCU was still tough overall with just 221 yards allowed. Jason Phillips, the MWC Preseason Defensive Player of the Year, accounted for a game-high 11 tackles, making all but one of those by himself.

Robert Henson, who finished with two tackles for loss and a sack, was impressed with the running of Moore. "In my opinion, Devin Moore is the best running back that we have faced all year. He made us go back to the basics of tackling, which is break down and wait on him to make a move and go for him then."

Phillips and Henson current rank first and second on the team in total tackles with 55 and 53, respectively, but when it comes to huge hits the team turns to Jerry Hughes. Through nine games Hughes, who has team highs with three fumble recoveries and four forced, has an incredible 15 TFLs and 12 sacks, the latter ranking him third in the nation. As a team, the Horned Frogs are above all others with an incredible 3.89 sacks per game and are fourth in the country with 8.56 TFLs per outing.

Frank Summers and Mike Clausen both scored a pair of rushing touchdowns for the Rebels last Saturday and against almost any other team that effort would have been more than enough to get the Rebels into the win column, but against BYU it was a different story. Quarterback Omar Clayton completed 26-of-40 passes for 321 yards and a TD as well, while Ryan Wolfe put on a show with 10 catches for 136 yards and a score in the setback.

One of the nation's top receivers, Wolfe has collected 59 passes thus far for 712 yards and four touchdowns, but when it comes to scoring via the pass, no one on the Rebels does it better than Phillip Payne who has taken seven of his 27 grabs this year into the end zone, averaging 15.4 yards per catch along the way. Clayton has emerged as a try find for head coach Mike Sanford, having thrown an impressive 17 touchdowns, but only three interceptions. Complementing Clayton is Summers who has rumbled his way for 615 of the team's 1,098 yards and seven of their 12TDs on the ground.

Part of the problem for the Rebels last week was that the defense failed to force any turnovers, that and the fact that BYU was averaging almost seven yards per play in Provo. In front of another sellout crowd at Edwards Stadium, the Cougars were allowed to generate not only 245 yards and four touchdowns passing, but also a season-high 209 yards on the ground as well. Jason Beauchamp led the Rebels with 12 tackles and Heivaha Mafi recorded the lone sack of the game for the visitors.

As good as the UNLV offense can be at times, the fact remains that the defense is holding the squad from being successful. The defense on the front line has been beaten and bruised by opposing running backs who have generated 229.1 ypg, which means the squad is eighth in the conference and 114th in the nation in that department this week. The pass defense is decent in terms of yards allowed (211.5 ypg), but when it comes to pass efficiency defense, this group ranks last in the MWC and is 116th in the country with a mark of 166.61. Perhaps if UNLV were better at getting to the quarterback (1.25 sacks per game) then there wouldn't be as much of an issue for the secondary.