Attention, please, for QBs. (Insider: college football).

Don't feel sorry for UNLV quarterback Jason Thomas. He knows he had an awful 2001 season following a great 2000 campaign and has grown weary of bring consoled.

"People come up to me and go, `J.T., it's OK' and give me a pat on the back," Thomas says. "I felt bad, but I'm not going to jump off Caesar's Palace or anything. You get tired of it, but you have to know where they're coming from, and it comes with the territory. They were the same people telling me how good I was doing the year before. So I've got to take it and roll with it."

Thomas won't have to roll with it alone this fall if things go bad. He'll have Vince Alcalde to help. Who the heck is Vince Alcalde? He's UNLV's quarterbacks coach--and he'll end up being one of the most important offseason coaching hires in the nation.

Last year, when Thomas completed just 83-of-194 passes (42.8 percent) for 1,353 yards with eight touchdowns and 12 picks, he had no coach devoted solely to his development. Instead, UNLV had an assistant who was assigned to quarterbacks and receivers. Having no one on staff strictly to work with Thomas was a mistake by coach and athletic director John Robinson.

Thomas is trying to recapture his form of 2000, when he hit 106 of 201 passes (52.7 percent) for 1,708 yards, with 14 TDs and nine interceptions. He also ran 138 times for 599 yards and 11 scores in guiding the Rebels to an 8-5 record that included a Las Vegas Bowl win over Arkansas. He was named Mountain West Offensive Newcomer of the Year.

He eventually hopes to break into the NFL with similar success. Had a quarterbacks coach not been brought on board at UNLV, that would have been highly doubtful. At 6-4, 230, Thomas would have been viewed as a raw prospect with great potential. Translation: a risk. But Alcalde's molding of Thomas, a senior who began his career at Southern California before following Robinson to Las Vegas, will produce a more finished product and make UNLV a sleeper in the Mountain West. Among Alcalde's areas of emphasis:

Release point. Thomas used to have a three-quarters throwing motion and twisted the ball upon release. The motion was more suited to throwing a baseball. Now, Thomas is reaching overhead and releasing the ball higher.