Nothing personal, just business

By Ron Kantowski

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Tina Kunzer-Murphy, the hardest working woman in the bowl business, can relate to Oscar De La Hoya and Keanu Reeves. She says she has been getting “beaten up” since announcing the matchup for Las Vegas Bowl XVII.

Which means she probably received a couple of angry e-mails.

Actually, it was four. But they were enough to make her Earth stand still. When it comes to criticism, the executive director of our postseason college football classic is more sensitive than Richard Simmons after watching “Beaches.” But that’s why she’s a good one. She cares about what people think.

She is upset that a few TCU fans are upset with her, or at least were, after the Las Vegas Bowl committee bypassed the Horned Frogs for BYU.

The Cougars, who spend so much time here they list Sam Boyd Stadium as a forwarding address, will play Arizona of the Pac-10 at 5:06 p.m. Saturday. Maverick and Goose and their pals from Nellis Air Force Base will probably buzz the stadium in their fighter jets at 5, from which it takes at least six minutes to regroup. Hence, the weird kickoff time (although ESPN, which is televising, also might have something to do with it).

Remember that old movie “Frogs” where all those reptiles went berserk and attacked Ray Milland? Probably not. But that’s also who Kunzer-Murphy felt like, at least until TCU learned it had received an invitation to Sea World — i.e., the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego, where it will play undefeated Boise State in the granddaddy of all minor bowl game matchups. Or something like that.

At first Frog fans were hopping mad when the committee selected a BYU team, which was blown out 32-7 by TCU and finished third in the Mountain West standings, instead of Gary Patterson’s defensive-minded bunch, which finished second.

Had TCU beaten Utah (after outplaying the Utes) and won the MWC title, the Las Vegas Bowl, which has first choice of the MWC bowl-eligible teams, might have felt compelled to take the Frogs (provided the Bowl Championship Series didn’t). But when Utah finished unbeaten and crashed the BCS for the second time, all bets — and invitations — were off.

That’s because there are seats to fill at Sam Boyd Stadium. Not tickets to be sold, because the game was a sellout before the matchups even were announced. But seats to fill.

When it comes to filling seats, BYU is like Miley Cyrus. TCU is more like her old man, Billy Ray.

Between the lines, the Frogs will give you an achy breaky heart. They’re better than BYU. Take away that last drive, and they’re better than Utah. They’re not better than Oklahoma, but that’s who was responsible for their only other loss.

But they travel about as well as a gorilla with a toothache.

There were no more than a few hundred TCU fans in the stands when the Frogs routed UNLV here in November. Sure, there would be more for a bowl game. But not as many as BYU will bring.

Five years ago the Las Vegas Bowl was struggling before receiving a boost from Wyoming’s beer-slamming legions, who turned out in droves to watch the Pokes upset UCLA. Then BYU hired Bronco Mendenhall away from New Mexico, and the Cougars got good again. Then the Las Vegas Bowl’s attendance concerns ceased and desisted.

This will be BYU’s fourth consecutive appearance in the Las Vegas Bowl. This also will be the Las Vegas Bowl’s fourth consecutive sellout. Those are indisputable facts, not independent ones. Moreover, BYU has been on the field for four of the nine largest crowds in Sam Boyd Stadium history. Saturday will make it five in 10.

Those intangibles are like the kicking game or a leaky roof in Tacoma. They should not be overlooked.

The Las Vegas Bowl committee didn’t. And when the votes were tabulated, the “ayes” — or at least the “Y” — had it.

“This year, there was some agony,” Kunzer-Murphy said about the call made to Provo instead of Fort Worth. “But I know it was the right decision.”

Unless the Kansas basketball team joins the Mountain West and becomes bowl eligible, choosing BYU always will be the right decision, at least in Las Vegas, where there are sponsors and television partners to consider and hotels trying to make a buck during a slow time of the year for local tourism.

In a perfect world, it would probably be California and TCU lining up at 5:06 p.m. Saturday. But California got bypassed, too, or at least traded to the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco, because it’s not as far for Cal fans to drive, and because the Arizona basketball team will play in Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon, giving Wildcats fans another reason to drive up from Tucson.

Know this: The bowls stopped being football games when they started naming them for muffler companies and chicken sandwiches instead of fruits and Astro-Bluebonnets. Then they became football-related businesses. That’s why there are now 34 of ’em. That’s why Notre Dame is playing Hawaii on Christmas Eve.

It’s not about the matchup. It’s not even about the betting line. It’s about the bottom line.

That’s why BYU is playing Arizona at 5:06 p.m. Saturday.

No matter what those four angry Horned Frogs think, it was the right decision.