LAS VEGAS >> For all the focus on today’s football game with the University of Hawaii, folks around the University of Nevada-Las Vegas are proudly telling visitors “wait ’til you come back.”

When the Rainbow Warriors make their scheduled 2019 return, UNLV officials boast, the school’s new domed 65,000, $1.9 billion home — Las Vegas Stadium, shared with the NFL Raiders — should be close to opening, and their $22.25 million state-of-the art, on-campus Fertitta Football Complex already will have debuted.

“A lot of big changes are coming in a short period of time,” spokesman Mark Wallington said.

UNLV President Len Jessup and football coach Tony Sanchez have touted the additions as game-changers in recruiting and potential realignment for the Rebels, who go head-to-head with UH for players and seek a home beyond the Mountain West Conference.

UNLV was among the schools that formally sought Big 12 membership last year when the conference considered expansion.

The 73,000-square-foot football complex alone, Jessup said, will “put us in the top level of the Mountain West and allow us to compete well with many programs from the Power Five conferences.”

“We’re looking forward to how that will change recruiting right there,” Wallington said.

Site preparation on Las Vegas Stadium, a 62-acre site near the Mandalay Bay hotel and I-5, began in September, with a formal groundbreaking scheduled for this month. The opening is projected for the 2020 NFL season.

As a condition of $750 million in hotel room tax funding for the facility, legislators required that UNLV be allowed to play there under a 30-year joint-use agreement that is currently being negotiated. The Raiders are responsible for the first $100 million.

Sanchez said, “Sharing a state-of-the-art stadium with the Raiders is another thing that will allow us to recruit at a high level.”

UH coach Nick Rolovich said, “I think those additions would certainly help them.”

It will replace the 46-year-old Sam Boyd Stadium (capacity 35,500) where UH and UNLV play today, 7 miles from McCarran International Airport.

Jessup said the facility will “give UNLV football access to a world-class stadium and accompanying game day experience that will rival the best in college football.”

The Fertitta Complex primarily is being bankrolled with what currently amounts to $18.24 million in pledge donations, $10 million of which comes from the Fertitta brothers, who this summer sold the Ultimate Fighting Championship for a reported $4 billion.

“We believe in the future of Rebel football under Tony Sanchez’s leadership and are proud to join others in helping make this vital building block for the program a reality,” the family said in a statement.

Jessup said, Sanchez and “… coaching staff and players deserve facilities that will allow the program to grow and succeed.”