Ron Kantowski looks at how Brigham Young has made filling the stadium easier for the bowl game’s organizers

Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

What: Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl XVI

Where: Sam Boyd Stadium

When: Dec. 22, kickoff 5 p.m.

Who: No. 1 pick from the Mountain West Conference vs. No. 4 or 5 from the Pac-10

Tickets: Fewer than 1,700 remain. Prices are $30 and $50. Reserve by phone , 388-FANS; for group and corporate package information, call 732-3912

Last year: Brigham Young defeated Oregon 38-8 in front of a stadium record crowd of 44,615

What's new: A VIP Club in the north end zone will include complimentary food and beverage service and Pioneer HDTV plasma televisions

Normally, this would be the week when the Las Vegas Bowl would invite a bunch of bank presidents and chief executives to some swanky restaurant on the Strip, serve them lunch with a fancy name (still tastes like chicken to me) and then browbeat them into buying blocks of tickets for the game.

But this year's Las Vegas Bowl ticket kickoff drive luncheon has been canceled. Not for lack of interest, but because there is no reason to have one.

As I am writing this, the official Countdown to Kickoff clock on my desk says there remain 73 days, 6 hours, 26 minutes and 57 seconds make that 56 55 54 until Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl XVI on Dec. 22.

And Sam Boyd Stadium is nearly sold out.

Fewer than 1,700 of the 40,000 tickets remain.

Forget BYU vs. Oregon. Wyoming vs. UCLA. It's as if the bowl committee severed ties with the Mountain West and the Pac-10 and invited U2 and the E Street Band instead.

So in lieu of holding a luncheon to sell tickets, the Las Vegas Bowl is hosting a golf tournament to thank the guys in the tasseled loafers for buying them early.

If you're a bowl game executive director, committee member or anybody else who wears a pastel-colored sports jacket with a sponsor patch on the breast pocket, this is how you would draw it up.

It wasn't that long ago when Tina Kunzer-Murphy, the Las Vegas Bowl executive director, would spend the weeks leading up to the game working rosary beads and reading tea leaves in hope that enough spectators would turn out so the wide shot on TV looked respectable.

This year, she'll be working on her short game.

So many tickets already have been sold that San Diego State could catch fire and qualify for the game and she'd still have nothing to worry about, other than making room in her den for another high-definition TV, courtesy of the title sponsor.

But as hard as she and her committee work, she'll be the first to say the Las Vegas Bowl didn't come into high definition among the minor bowl games until Bronco Mendenhall was named coach at Brigham Young and the Cougars embarked on a football renaissance.

The Las Vegas Bowl pits the fourth or fifth or 23rd bowl-eligible team from the Pac-10 against the Mountain West Conference champion , and the past two years, BYU has been it. Not coincidentally, the past two Las Vegas Bowls have sold out, with a stadium record crowd of 44,615 turning out last year to watch the Cougars prove that Oregon was not all it was quacked up to be.

The BYU football team is nearly as popular in Southern Nevada as single-deck blackjack and synchronized traffic lights. So the real test for the Las Vegas Bowl will be filling the joint if and when the Cougars start throwing interceptions against New Mexico or Colorado State.

That's the way it should be, Kunzer-Murphy said.

"I would like to think the teams that compete in the game make a difference every year (in tickets sold)," she said. "We're very, very lucky when BYU's in the game because they travel well and have a great following."

With the Cougars assuming their default team-to-beat role in a subpar year within the Mountain West, Cougars fans apparently felt it was safe to purchase tickets in September . I guess they've seen Colorado State play, too.

I was going to close by saying that if you live here and don't have a cousin who wears a helmet with a big block "Y" on the side, however unlikely that may be, you should get your tickets now.

But in that ESPN is televising , you can rest comfortably, knowing that if you get turned away at the ticket window , at least you'll be able to watch on TV.