Columnist Ron Kantowski: Pressure remains on Thomas

Thursday, Aug. 1, 2002 | 9:52 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's insider notes column appears Tuesday and his Page One column appears Thursday. He can be reached at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

This was supposed to be the year when UNLV's Jason Thomas was going to lay lower than a Chevy Impala in East L.A.

Forget about it. The college football season is all of two days old, and the mercurial Rebel quarterback already has been the subject of stories in both local newspapers and has had his mug plastered all over television in the Mountain Time Zone.

Granted, there are more TV sets down at Super Pawn than in the Mountain Time Zone. But Thomas' presence at Tuesday's Mountain West Conference football media day in San Diego confirmed what everybody around here already knows: That regardless of how poorly he played last year, that big No. 2 on the back of Thomas' jersey remains one too low when it comes to describing his importance to his team.

That said, this is also where I second-guess John Robinson. I half expected the Rebels' coach to leave Thomas at home, if for no other reason than to shield him from another round of questions about his 42-percent completion percentage, 12-8 interception-to-touchdown ratio, dwindling rushing output, bum foot and shoulder, dissension among his teammates and a 2001 Heisman Trophy campaign that was scrubbed faster than a space shuttle launch in an ice storm.

All of those figured in UNLV free-falling to a 4-7 record after the Rebels had turned the Arkansas Razorbacks into pork rinds in the previous year's Las Vegas Bowl. So I thought Robinson might have opted to find somebody else to accompany himself, mighty-mite running back Joe Haro and Mark Wallington, his football publicist, on the flight to Tony Gwynn's turf.

But unlike most in my profession, I'll concede that Robinson knows more about it than I do. For starters, he's got enough Rose Bowl rings (four) to do a Liberace impression. I don't even have four Rose Bowl programs.

The last time I questioned Robinson's mind set was two years ago on the last play of regulation at Ole Miss. The Rebels were out of timeouts and had goal to go from the other Rebels' 17-yard line. UNLV's only chance was to throw the ball into the end zone and pray for a miracle. So what does Robinson do? He calls a draw play and Jeremi Rudolph runs it in to force overtime.

So if Robinson thinks Jason Thomas is a big boy capable of sticking up for himself amid constant scrutiny from a fickle media, you've got to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But if the Rebels' coach believes that Thomas received too much credit for the Rebels' success two years ago, and too much blame for their lack of it last year, putting him front and center on media day probably wasn't the best way to convey it.

Those who have seen him in voluntary summer workouts say the zip has returned to Thomas' passes, and his mechanics, thanks to new fulltime quarterbacks coach Vince Alcalde, are improved. I'm still a doubting Thomas about the latter, in that a Sun photo from one of the workouts shows him passing off his front foot. That's the wrong one if you plan to do most of your pitching from the pocket.

If Haro and the incoming crop of running backs are as good as advertised, the Rebels may not need Thomas to do it all, like the quarterback in the electric football game I played as a kid.

But as the Rebels begin preparing for training camp, the buzz from the sports writers and talking heads on TV is still mostly about Thomas.

Same as it ever was.