Columnist Ron Kantowski: Reno moonwalk still baffling days later

Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2005 | 8:52 a.m.

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

Two days after it happened, it was still hard to comprehend that the Rebels had a first-and-goal at the UNR 6-yard line Saturday night and wound up punting -- that's right, punting -- on fourth-and-goal at the Wolf Pack 42. It was an exercise in futility that essentially decided UNR's 22-14 victory at Mackay Stadium.

It's one thing to go backward, as the Rebels did, but quite another to go forward at the same time, which the Rebels also did. Or at least appeared to do.

Twice during the Reno Moonwalk, which is what I am calling UNLV's backward march down the field to preserve it for posterior -- er, posterity -- sake, the Rebels punched the ball into the end zone and had another pass and run carry inside the 1-yard line, only to have all three plays nullified by penalties.

Every time the Rebels got close to the end zone, somebody dropped a yellow hankie. It reminded me of the 1972 gold medal basketball game in Munich, when our guys seemed to have the game won three times, only to see the officials give the Soviets another chance, and another, and another.

The guy who scored the winning basket for the USSR after the umpteenth time the last two seconds of the game were replayed was named Alexander Belov. Had he not died in 1978, you would have sworn he was wearing a striped shirt on Saturday night.

But UNLV coach Mike Sanford, who on Monday was still shaking his head over the literal reversal of fortune, said the Rebels' own ineptness during that sequence of bizarre events hurt UNLV more than any on the zebras' part.

"It was one of the worst series that I have ever been involved with in coaching," Sanford said during his weekly luncheon with the print media. "It was bad football and we've got to correct it."

The bizarre possesion, set up when Ernest Gordon recovered a UNR fumble, started at the UNR 19 with a 2-yard run by Eric Jackson on the last play of the first quarter. Quarterback Shane Steichen ran for seven yards after the teams switched ends and Jackson picked up four more on third-and-1, giving UNLV a first down at the Wolf Pack 6.

That's when the full moon appeared over the south grandstand and the wolves began to howl.

UNLV's Marco Guerra was penalized for a false start, moving the ball back to the 11. On second down, Steichen completed a flanker screen pass to Donell Wheaton that lost a yard. On the next play, Stiechen scrambled into the end zone for the first of UNLV's two apparent touchdowns. But the TD was erased by a clipping call behind the play on Tremayne Kirkland, and that's putting it mildly.

The clip was so far behind the play that the official originally dropped his flag in Sparks before picking it up and placing it around the 2-yard line, where he apparently thought he saw something.

An incomplete pass made it third-and-goal from the 17, when Steichen hit tight end Greg Estandia, who was being interfered with in the end zone, for another apparent TD. Trouble was, UNLV was called for an illegal shift on the same play.

Offsetting penalties. Do not pass the goal line, do not collect six points.

So Steichen went back to work, hooking up with Kirkland, who was stopped about two feet shy of paydirt. Fourth-and-goal inside the one, right? Wrong. Jesse Knight was called for holding, leaving the Rebels with third-and-goal at the UNR 27. On the next play, Steichen was sacked for a 15-yard loss.

So on fourth-and-goal at the UNR 42, Kip Facer punted. The ball traveled all of 16 yards. Instead of finding itself behind 14-9, the Wolf Pack took over at the UNLV 26 with its 9-7 lead intact.

In retrospect, it might have been the biggest blown opportunity since Larry "Shortsighted" Gates declined an offer to purchase a thousand shares of Microsoft from his kid brother.

"It was bad, bad ball," Sanford said of the ill-fated series that basically resulted in the Fremont Cannon receiving a new paint job.

Many of the botched plays on that "drive" were among the 47 that Sanford pulled out of Saturday's game film to be rectified or commended. Rest assured there were a lot more in the former category than the latter.

Still, that the Rebels were able to get the ball into the end zone twice and within a couple of feet of it on a third play during that series shows that UNLV might not have been as hapless on offense as it appeared in the final statistics.

"It shows that when we execute things right, we have the plays and players that will make plays," Sanford said as the Rebels (1-2) begin preparing for Saturday's game at Utah State. "We've got the right scheme and we've got the right players, when they do it right. They just didn't do it right (on that series) and that was huge in the game."

Remember The Drive, when John Elway drove the Broncos 98 yards over the frozen tundra of Municipal Stadium against the Browns with time running out in the 1987 AFC championship game?

This was nothing like it.