Columnist Ron Kantowski: Rams, Falcons do MWC proud … Rebels don’t

Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2002 | 9:46 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.

Holy Toledo, Batman! That sure was another brutal performance by the UNLV football team in Ohio.

Based on the way they snoozed through the first quarters at Toledo and Oregon State the past two weeks, the Rebels could use somebody with the enthusiasm of Robin, the Boy Wonder. Instead, they continue to play like a bunch of Jokers.

In that this is (thankfully) an off week, at least it won't be Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel for UNLV this Saturday.

A look at the Good, Bad and Ugly of the week in sports:

The Good

COLORADO STATE AND AIR FORCE: The Rams were idle Saturday but Alabama's victory over Brett Favre U. (Southern Mississippi) enabled Colorado State of the Mountain West Conference to vault to No. 1 in ESPN.com's mid-major (non-BCS conferences) top 10 poll. Unbeaten Air Force -- this year's Fresno State? asks ESPN -- climbed to No. 4 by beating nationally ranked California in Berkeley.

But Utah (2-2), which was shafted by the officials at Arizona last week and gave Michigan fits before losing 10-7 at the Big House Saturday, is not listed among the Top 10 mid-majors. That's a bigger oversight than Mister Magoo trying to read between the lines.

The Bad

FOX SPORTS: The big shots at the local Fox affiliate are still trying to delete the nasty messages from their voice and e-mail boxes after somebody in L.A. apparently pulled the plug on the scheduled Bears-Saints game Sunday and gave us that spine-tingling Cowboys-Eagles matchup instead.

That went over like taking a plate of spare ribs and sausage away from a Bears fan and replacing it with a dinner salad.

"We had about a million (complaints)," a spokesperson at the local Fox affiliate said about the reaction to Da Bears game being pre-empted locally.

According to the local station, Fox headquarters confirmed Friday that we would get the Bears' game before somebody called an audible on Sunday. Fox L.A. did not return phone calls.

"This has never happened before," said the spokesperson. "It was a freak accident."

ALBUQUERQUE ISOTOPES: Naming Albuquerque's reinstated PCL baseball franchise the "Isotopes" after the fictional hometown nine in "The Simpsons" (which resisted a move to the Duke City) seemed like a good idea at the time.

But a poll conducted by the Albuquerque Journal revealed that 55 percent of respondents don't care for the name, while only 31 percent said they liked it. The rest are undecided.

The Isotopes, formerly known as the Calgary Cannons, will begin play next year. Other names suggested by fans included 66ers, Atoms, Dukes (by which the team was known during its many years as the Dodgers' top farm club), Tumbleweeds, Desert Sons and Sheep (my personal favorite).

In case you've never been to Los Alamos, an isotope is an unstable version of a chemical element. As an Associated Press story put it, isotopes are like mother's milk in New Mexico, birthplace of the atomic bomb.

COACHING BLACKOUT: The presence of historically black colleges Grambling and Tennessee State at Sam Boyd Stadium Saturday should have served as a reminder to a historically grievous oversight: That although African-American players are widespread at American colleges and universities only four of the 117 Division I-A teams are coached by black men.

According to the Indianapolis Star, 26 percent of the nation's college basketball coaches are black. But though 50 percent of the players in college football are black, just 3.4 percent of the coaches are.

And here you thought Jason Thomas' passing percentage was out of whack.

The Ugly

THREE DOG NIGHT: No matter how bad Saturday was to the Rebels, it could have been worse. Take Three Dog Night. Back in the early 1970s, the pop group was as big as it gets, with a string of hit records that resulted in more joy than the fishes in the deep blue sea could ever know.

Saturday night, the remains of the band found itself on a dusty stage at those silly chuckwagon races downtown, even though I'm sure their mamas told them not to come.

Let's just hope the Rolling Stones were paying attention.

UPDATE: Kudos to Sun reader James Nickelson for being first to answer my rhetorical question in this space last week about the last time anybody ran the single wing offense.

"The single wing was probably used last weekend if Denison University had a game," Nickelson wrote in an e-mail. "They still use the formation.

"I don't know if they have Tom Harmon playing left half, though."

In reality, Denison hasn't run the single wing since its longtime coach and single wing proponet Keith Piper retired in 1992. Denison had run the single wing for 39 seasons under Piper.