Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Ron Kantowski: Jackson not alone in leaving stadium early

Ron Kantowski's insider notes column appears Tuesday and his Page One column appears Thursday. He can be reached at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.

Some people are giving UNLV assistant football coach John Jackson a hard time for leaving Saturday's 49-48 overtime victory over spunky Wyoming with about three minutes to play. But he certainly wasn't alone in getting an early start.

More than three quarters of the stadium was empty by the time Jackson set sail for the MGM Grand where the fighter he manages, Marco Antonio Barrera, was going toe-to-toe (occasionally) with hard-headed Johnny Tapia.

UNLV should get used to it. As long as it continues to schedule televised home football games at 4 p.m. on chilly November afternoons, there are going to be a lot empty seats by halftime.

I know, I know, it's a TV thing. But UNLV didn't have to sign that contract with the SportsWest network. Utah didn't.

This reporter might have even made it to halftime had his post-nasal drip not flared up in the vicinity of the soft pretzels midway through the second quarter.

A look at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the local sports week.

The Good ...

For the first time this season, UNLV protected Jason Thomas better than a bunch of All State salesman and by now you've probably seen the results -- 20 of 25 passing for a career-high 329 yards in the Rebels' overtime victory over Wyoming at Sam Boyd Stadium Saturday.

Thomas also accounted for five touchdowns -- three rushing and two passing.

As a result, the boo birds who had treated Thomas with so much disdain in his last home outing against New Mexico were able to head south in pursuit of warmer weather.

To say it was a topsy-turvy week for longtime Las Vegas resident Jimmy Vasser on the CART champ car racing circuit would literally be true.

Vasser started the week on his head as his car flipped upside down during a 10-car pileup at the start of a rainy race in Australia. It was a frightening incident right out of "Driven," that awful racing movie starring Sylvester Stallone, and although Vasser walked away from the mishap, his father and others on the scene were driven to tears by the ferocity of the wreck.

But seven days later, Vasser completed the week squarely on his feet in victory lane at the 500 Presented by Toyota at California Speedway. What's more, Vasser did it in record fashion. His average speed of 197.995 mph was the fastest 500-mile race in history.

Vasser, 36, doesn't yet have a ride for next year. But if he could turn his yellow race car into a two-seater, he could sure give Las Vegas cabbies a run for their money from McCarran to the Strip.

Channel 13 sports director Ron Futrell has become the Marathon Man, and not just because he's been around longer than Dustin Hoffman.

Futrell, 46, this weekend completed the New York City Marathon in 4:56.06. He finished in 1,950th place in his age group and 23,047th overall among a field of nearly 32,000 masochists -- er, fitness buffs.

The Bad ...

Once again, it would be great if UNLV could pick a starting time for its home football games and stick with it.

I love the 4 p.m. start during the warm weather months, but Saturday's game should have started at 1 p.m. or even noon, when the conditions were ideal for the entire game to be played in bright sunshine, not just half of the first quarter.

Yet school officials say starting at noon or even 4 keeps the crowd down, regardless of the weather. Fans will have an opportunity to disprove that theory in two weeks when the Rebels host Air Force at noon in an ESPN Plus game.

Moreover, an earlier kickoff will enable UNLV assistant head coach John Jackson to get home in time to fertilize his lawn or whatever he'll have going that day.

Jackson's early departure from Saturday's Wyoming game became an issue for some after the Cowboys tied the game on a Hail Mary pass on the final play and converted a two-point conversion after time had expired.

Jackson could have spared himself some grief by asking head coach John Robinson's permission to leave ahead of time. He's only the running backs coach and while he does have input on what running plays are called, it wasn't as if he was going to be missed that much, if at all.

Last year, when he was more involved in the UNLV offense and called more of the plays, it might have been a different story. Then if I were Robinson, I would have granted Jackson permission to leave after the first quarter -- even if there wasn't a fight.

The Ugly.

Let's see, there was UNLV's nonexistent pass rush and defense at Sam Boyd Stadium, boxer Johnny Tapia's full body tattoo at the MGM Grand and Las Vegas race car driver Paul Tracy's newly shaved head at California Speedway.

But I'd have to say the ugliest thing I saw last week was a chubby red-headed kid wearing a blazer and chomping on a half-eaten -- and very realistic looking -- turkey leg on Halloween night.

When I asked who he was supposed to be, he said "John Madden."

archive