Columnist Ron Kantowski: A checkerboard stage awaits

Friday, Sept. 3, 2004 | 10:17 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

After pulling a groin muscle while trying to hoist the Tennessee football media guide into browsing position, I finally figured out how the sports books derive a betting line for intersectional games such as UNLV's at Rocky Top U. Sunday.

You take the number of pages in the heavier media guide (in this case, Tennessee's 372-page Vol-uminous 2004 edition) and subtract the lighter one (UNLV's 233-page guide, a mere pamphlet by comparison). So that's 119. Then you divide that by seven, the value of a touchdown (provided your alma mater burned one of its scholarships on a former soccer player), and you get 17. That's the base spread.

Add three points for every 100,000 spectators in the stadium and presto! There's the 20-point margin by which the bookmakers believe the Rebels are going to roll over and play dead in Knoxville on Sunday night.

The line has barely moved since it first appeared, which means that John Robinson and I must be the only two fools who think the Rebels are capable of shocking the college football world, or at least of raise its eyebrow, at the sprawling house that General Robert R. Neyland built.

Maybe that's because traditionally speaking, in a sport that is almost predicated on it, UNLV just doesn't measure up.

So you get the idea. If the scoreboard operator Sunday substitutes "Haves" and "Have-Nots" in the place where the team names usually go, at least you'll know why.

Yet, there's something telling me the Rebels won't be crushed despite seeing all that orange.

Perhaps it's because Peyton Manning graduated in 1997. Tennessee will go with one of two freshman quarterbacks, the first time in SEC history that a true frosh has started under center. And one of them is related to Danny Ainge, so how much mobility can he have?

As long as the Rebels don't play Digger Phelps defense, you would think their speed might give a young and/or stationary target something to think about. Wisconsin's Jim Sorgi still has No. 27, the number worn by UNLV's Jamaal Brimmer, tattooed on his forehead after running into the Rebels' strong safety and his speedy mates in Madison last fall.

Tennessee is coming off a 10-3 season, which is sort of average for a big-budget program. In their two nonconference games against UNLV-type opponents last year, the Vols struggled before subduing Fresno State (24-6) and Marshall (34-24).

Preseason polls are about as meaningful as a Lee Corso prediction but for what it's worth, Tennessee is ranked No. 14 heading into Saturday's game -- the same spot Wisconsin occupied last Sept. 13 when the Rebels turned it into Cheeze Whiz, 23-5, in front of 78,043 nonbelieving dairy farmers.

But the main reason I believe the Rebels have a shot is that Robinson seems semi-confident going in. Plus, he has an uncanny ability to prepare his teams for big games in big-game atmospheric conditions. His 8-1 record in bowl games -- and not all of those wins came against Ohio State -- gives him the best winning percentage of any college coach with a minimum of eight appearances.

Like most in his profession, Robinson usually errs on the side of woe-is-us when it comes to discussing an upcoming opponent. Yet this week, you almost get the impression he believes in miracles, or at least season-opening upsets.

"If we go in there and just take care of ourselves," he said, alluding to crucial turnovers and silly mistakes, "we can win this game. We'll need some help from Tennessee, but we can get this done.

"If you take their budget, it triples ours. But that doesn't change the game. We're not going down there to look at their facilities or their budget, we're going down there to play."

I like the attitude. There's nothing that says if you're being tossed to the lions, you can't swagger into the Colisseum.

But don't be too terribly surprised if Phil Fulmer finds that beating the Rebels is a little more difficult than snitching on Alabama.