Columnist Ron Kantowski: Las Vegas tunes in, turns on to Rebels

Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2000 | 10:25 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's notes column appears Tuesday. His page one column appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

One more sign -- perhaps the best one yet -- that the UNLV football program has turned the corner.

Because the UNLV athletic department and/or a local TV outfit wasn't willing to pull the necessary strings to get the Rebels' game at Ole Miss on TV, and that the KBAD radio signal has about the range of a tin can and a ball of string inside my house, there was no recourse but to listen to the game in my pickup truck parked in the driveway.

At the very moment John Robinson called that outrageous draw play from the 17-yard line on the last play of the game a carload of young men drove by.

Chances are they are still in high school, because they had lame goatees and their hats on backward. They were listening to the game, and as Jeremi Rudolph dragged a couple of tacklers into the end zone, they whooped and hollered as if Britney Spears was strolling down the sidewalk in a skimpy outfit.

I imagine they groaned when the Rebels came up short 43-40 in overtime, although they were long out of earshot by then.

The Rebels have yet to learn the secret to winning these close games. But at least they've got a decent percentage of the city tuned in to see if they can.

Around the horn

"Folks, John Robinson has some body parts made of brass."

"There's satisfaction in playing hard," he said in the aftermath of his worst game as a Rebel (7 of 25 passing with 2 interceptions). "There's no quit in this team. We showed it at Iowa State. We showed it at BYU. We showed it at Colorado State. We showed it (Saturday).

"But you've got to find a way to win the big game. That's what championship teams do."

But if you maintain all losses hurt the same, regardless of the score or the quality of opponent, try taking a stroll around the North Carolina State campus this week and see how the Wolfpack players are doing after getting shellacked 58-14 by Florida State.

Just about the time Las Vegas got plugged in, Oliver Stone called the Sun office, wondering if the original decision not to show the game here was nothing more than a thinly veiled conspiracy to get local viewers to sign up for Cox Cable's digital TV package.

Until the big shots in New York came to their senses, the only way to see the big game in the comfort of your own living room was to sign up for the digital hookup and buy one day of ESPN's GamePlan package.

Better late than never -- unless you're one of guys who anted up for the digital hookup before the game was sent to free TV.

Ironically, the OU-Nebraska game turned out to be the least compelling among the 49 or so that aired on Saturday. Outside of Homer Fornsby, who can recall seeing as many fantastic finishes as Saturday's TV card offered?

After stating how high (perhaps a wrong choice of words, given Denton's admitted marijuana use in college) it was on the former UNLV quarterback, our new XFL team did not make him one of its 69 draft choices, taking instead former Rebel receiver Todd Floyd and 68 guys you never heard of.

Perhaps the reason the Outlaws didn't tab Denton or for that matter, ex-Nebraska bad boy Lawrence Phillips, is they figured they'd have to use all of their territorial selections on former BYU missionaries to offset their presence.

But from where I sit, not even Pam Anderson can make a parka and snowshoes look sexy.