 |
 |  |
|  |
No Vegas vacation for Fresno fans
Posted: Monday December 20, 1999 07:40 PM
By Michael C. Lewis, Special to CNN/SI One of the biggest mysteries surrounding the ability of Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson to get all three league co-champions into bowl games -- despite having only two guaranteed berths -- was how hard he had to lean on the Las Vegas Bowl to invite Utah instead of BYU. Bowl officials and Ute fans said not at all. Ticket sales suggest otherwise. Disgusted that their team is playing only Utah -- until this season a league rival in the old WAC -- Fresno State fans have so avoided buying tickets for the Dec. 18 game at Sam Boyd Stadium that the Bulldogs could actually lose money on the game. Through last week, FSU has sold only about 5,000 tickets. "No one around here cares about Utah," season-ticket holder Tom Lucas told the Fresno Bee. "Had it been BYU, they'd probably sell it out, and I would have found a way to get there." It's hard to imagine the Las Vegas Bowl would willingly risk such sentiment when BYU was still available after the Liberty Bowl selected Colorado State. Especially since it was well-known that the Bulldogs and their fans wanted to play BYU, one of the teams that abandoned them in the WAC and formed the Mountain West. What's more, the Cougs are widely considered the best bowl attraction in the league -- what with Coach LaVell Edwards, the legendary passing game and the nationwide network of fans affiliated with the Mormon Church -- in spite of the fact they lost their last two games. Many fans (particularly in Provo) believed Thompson strong-armed the selection process in Las Vegas, because the only way for him to negotiate a third team into a bowl was to have the Cougars available to fill the at-large spot at the Motor City Bowl. Neither the Utes nor the Rams appealed to the Motor City folks, and ESPN pushed to televise a matchup between BYU and unbeaten No. 11 Marshall. So the league got what it wanted. The Rams and Utes got what they wanted. Even the Cougars have tried to put a good face on the notion of spending the holidays in sub-zero temperatures with little to do, just to play in a virtually anonymous bowl game. But the Las Vegas Bowl? Judging by the lack of enthusiasm -- the Utes had sold only about 8,000 tickets -- it will probably wind up with a half-empty stadium to display on the national TV broadcast, which, in Utah, will be shown on the Animal Planet channel because so few households have ESPN2.
But No. 3 was a museumNo wonder the Motor City Bowl is merely the Motor City Bowl, with marketing like this. In an advertisement covering most of a page in The Salt Lake Tribune last Sunday, the bowl offered notoriously uptight BYU fans eight reasons -- if fans "need" another one, it said -- to travel to Detroit for the game.No. 1? "We've got casino gaming!"
Should have given it to UrlacherThe Rams avoided having to deal with a major distraction before the Liberty Bowl when defensive coordinator Larry Kerr -- generally considered the heir apparent to Coach Sonny Lubick -- turned down overtures to pursue the head coaching job at Idaho.There were coaching shuffles elsewhere, however. Wyoming's Dana Dimel departed for Houston, leaving defensive coordinator Vic Koenning to take his place. And at New Mexico, Coach Rocky Long fired offensive coordinator Jim Fenwick after two years of trying to install a West Coast offense. The Lobos used three quarterbacks this season, averaged about 21 points per game and finished 4-7. Long said he won't decide on his offensive system for next year until he hires a new coordinator, which he hopes to do by next month. He added that there could be more changes on the staff, depending on which direction he chooses to go.
So Marshall 41-27, Then?If only Marshall Coach Bob Pruett had taken the Houston job -- the one that reportedly included a four-fold raise, a house and two cars -- the BYU Cougars would have been in almost exactly the same situation they were in a year ago, coming off a hard loss to face an unbeaten team from a minor conference that had just lost its head coach to another job.But since Pruett did not mimic Tommy Bowden's departure from Tulane just before the Green Wave's 41-27 victory in the Liberty Bowl last season, the similarities for the Cougars extend only as far as the possible loss of their best running back. That happened last year, when Ronney Jenkins was suspended -- and eventually expelled -- for the bowl game because he violated the university's Honor Code. Now, the Cougars are worried that running back Luke Staley will be unable to play because of a knee injury. The league freshman of the year injured the knee at San Diego State on Nov. 6, and missed the last two games because of it and a strained calf. The Cougs lost both games, in large part because they could fashion no running game, and were encouraged to be getting Staley back for the bowl game. But Staley re-injured the knee trying to cut on a snowy, slippery field at Cougar Stadium on the first day of bowl practices last week -- BYU does not have an indoor practice facility -- and trainers still have not determined whether he will be able to play again this season. Michael C. Lewis covers the Mountain West for The Salt Lake Tribune.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
