By Mark Pszonak
When I woke up this morning I didn’t expect to be upset with Matthew Sluka, but I guess you never know what a new day brings. Half awake, I checked X and saw this post from Mr. Sluka, which went public around 1am ET. If you don’t want to waste your time reading it, I’ll give a better recap below:
— Matthew Sluka (@MatthewSluka) September 25, 2024
My recap is that Sluka is a quitter. Sluka quit on his 3-0 team during a season that they can make the playoffs. Sluka quit on his team because of money. Sluka quit on his team because he only cares about himself.
Sluka, a transfer from Holy Cross, was part of a great story and now he is a national joke. While the Rebels are 3-0 and he was an important part of this, lets take a look at his stats, because I’m not sure he did. In three games he has completed 21 of 48 passes for 318 yards, which is a 43.8% completion rate. There are currently 129 quarterbacks listed on the official NCAA statistics website and Sluka is 128th in completion percentage. There are 127 quarterbacks with a better completion percentage this season and he is the one who quit on his team.
Yes, he leads the team in rushing (253 yards), but this isn’t 1985, this isn’t Nebraska, and this isn’t one of the service academies. You need some threat of passing game to win, which the Rebels were doing despite Sluka.
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And even with Sluka’s massive faults, the Rebels positioned themselves for a big season with wins over two P4 teams (Houston and Kansas). Head coach Barry Odom has done an amazing job and now he’ll need to reload the offense for the remainder of the season, which includes a game against Fresno State in only three days.
Speaking of Coach Odom, he is known to be a good, fair coach. Yet nowadays that doesn’t mean much. Coach Odom deserved better.
There is no surprise that all of this is because of NIL money. Supposedly Sluka didn’t receive as much money as he was promised and recently was offered more from another school. UNLV isn’t known to offer much NIL money which is one thing, which Sluka knew, but who and how much did someone offer a quarterback who is completing 43.8% of his passes? That isn’t known right now, but there is no way that he was offered enough to make his decision sensible and morally just.
I’ll end this article with this thought. I am now a HUGE UNLV fan. They deserve better and I would like nothing more than to watch them continue winning and make the playoffs. And I hope Sluka watches all of it.
