Rebels slated for ABC game

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, April 6, 2000 | 10:31 a.m.

It appears UNLV's football team will be making its first appearance on network television in more than a decade this fall.

The Mountain West Conference released its tentative 2000 football television schedule this week and UNLV's Sept. 23 contest at BYU is listed to be televised by ABC in what likely will be a West Coast regional broadcast.

When was the last time UNLV appeared on ABC?

"Not since I've been here, and certainly not in the '90s," said UNLV football spokesman Mark Wallington, who came to UNLV in 1993. "There have been so few TV appearances that nobody has really kept track of it."

UNLV's last major TV appearance occurred in 1994 when the Rebels trounced Central Michigan, 52-24, in Las Vegas Bowl VIII on ESPN. The 1999 Rebel football media guide does list UNLV having lost to Wyoming, 45-21, on Oct. 3, 1981, in what was the school's first-ever ABC regional broadcast.

Although ABC hasn't officially signed off on its TV schedule and could conceivably make changes at a later date, the chances of that happening are very slim according to Amy Turner, assistant commissioner of communications for the Mountain West Conference.

"I'd be very surprised if they changed it," Turner said. "If they didn't feel that they were close to setting it in stone, they wouldn't have let me release it."

Turner said ABC would likely sign off on the schedule "within the next month." The network gave her the okay to include the schedule in the conference's preseason football guide which was mailed to media members late last week.

Besides the UNLV-BYU contest, other MWC games ABC is scheduled to show include the Aug. 26 Pigskin Classic matchup between BYU and Florida State as well as BYU at Virginia (Sept. 2), Illinois at San Diego State (Sept. 9) and San Diego State at Wyoming (Oct. 7).

The Oct. 28 game featuring Air Force at Notre Dame will be televised nationally by NBC.

The MWC also listed eight other games to be shown by either ESPN or ESPN2, none including UNLV. However, additional games will be added later in the year and also during the season.