Columnist Ron Kantowski: There’s no rush to make Dorsey the go-to guy

Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2001 | 9:35 a.m.

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

It was just one line in this space last week, and John Robinson might have gotten around to doing it anyway. But it was nice to see little speedster Dominique Dorsey finally get some reps in UNLV's heartbreaking 35-31 loss to No. 20 Brigham Young Saturday.

The 5-foot-7, 153-pound (no typographical error) freshman took over the nation's lead in kickoff returns with three for 115 yards, upping his season average to 46.7.

Too bad the UNLV punters can't average 46.7.

But it was his extended stint in the Rebels' backfield that had everybody talking following the bitter defeat. Dorsey, so small that he apparently didn't show up on the radar screen of the BYU defense, carried 14 times for 77 yards and a pair of darting touchdown runs.

Naturally, local columnists, anchormen, sports talk hosts, Internet chat room patrons and even a couple of guys who actually might know something about football immediately called for Dorsey to become the Rebels' go-to guy.

That would be a huge mistake, if for no other reason that the experiment wouldn't last long.

To use an old Moe Howard expression, Dorsey is so small he would get "murderized" by the opposition, and Robinson would look like a Porcupine Head for letting his valuable scatback get squashed.

Maybe things will be different next year, after Dorsey has spent an off-season in the weight room. Until then, the Rebels would be wise to utilize him in the manner Michigan did Anthony Carter nearly a generation ago: Kick returns, short passes in the flat, reverses, etc.

Carter probably only touched the ball 6-8 times a game. But every time he did, the play went for about 40 yards, and he finished his career with all of his limbs intact.

If the Rebels are going to call Dorsey's number 15 times every game, they should at least let him run outside the tackles now and then, where his speed would be better utilized. And where 295-pound defensive tackles couldn't catch him.

Had UNLV not wasted that timeout, it could have run the ball on fourth-and-1 deep in BYU territory as the final seconds ticked off, then stopped the clock after the chains were set.

Or the Rebels could have used the timeout earlier in the drive, instead of having Jason Thomas take about 20 seconds to call a play at the line of scrimmage during a "hurry-up" offense. It appeared Thomas was reciting the Gettysburg Address before the ball finally was snapped.

Of course, if Robinson's confidence in his special teams weren't so lacking, he could have saved the timeout. He told reporters that the botched snap from center that cost the Rebels a win at Arkansas in the season opener figured in his decision to stop the clock and make doubly sure everybody was clear on his assignment.

According to the Associated Press, a group of surfers started pelting a kayaker with a beach ball after the kayaker had whacked a surfer with his paddle as they jockeyed for position with Bonds coming up.

Disturbance? Sounds more like a Frankie Avalon movie.

Yankees and Mets fans must have gotten a good belly laugh upon reading that one.

Literally hit the roof.

UNR's center for Engineering Earthquake Research was called upon to test the NFL's first retractable roof stadium by slamming 700,000 pounds of force into three full-scale models of the roof, to determine which would yield the best protection when Reliant Stadium opens next year.

Ordinarily, the big news on the Reno campus would be Saturday's football game against the once-scorned Rebels. But a game featuring teams with a combined 1-6 record apparently isn't causing much of a tremor on the state's college football Richter scale.

And finally, for the second straight year, the NHL's Nashville Predators played an exhibition game before a full house of 17,113 elementary students. The game against the Atlanta Thrashers was fight-filled, featuring 43 penalty minutes, 27 in the first period alone. Instead of serving five minutes, enforcers from both sides were told to write "I shall not misbehave in front of school kids" 500 times on the dressing room blackboard between periods.