Leila Navidi

UNLV’s Frank Summers runs with the ball during the game against Iowa State at Sam Boyd Stadium.

By Ron Kantowski

Mon, Sep 22, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Phillip Payne made another catch in a dark corner of the end zone — although this time he used both hands — and UNLV won another football game in overtime Saturday night, against another team from a Bowl Championship Series wearing red and gold.

This time it was Iowa State, instead of Arizona State, and this time the Rebels had to hold off a storm at the end, instead of storming back. They let the Cyclones drive 98 yards with no timeouts remaining to tie the game with three seconds left.

It didn’t matter. They won. Again. Nearly blowing a 21-point halftime lead? Doesn’t really matter when you win. It’s like a blooper that falls in between the shortstop and the left fielder. When you win, everything looks like a line drive in the box score.

So the Rebels are halfway there. They are 3-1.

Halfway to becoming bowl eligible.

And it’s only September.

In each of the past four seasons, UNLV was only a third of the way to becoming bowl eligible — in November, at the end of the season.

That’s why it’s never too early to talk about bowl games around here.

Heck, it wasn’t too early to talk about it last week, following the Rebels’ rousing 23-20 victory at No. 15 Arizona State. Around here, you never know when you might get to do it again.

“Tell me you’re not calling to talk about us taking the Rebels,” said Tina Kunzer-Murphy, executive director of the Las Vegas Bowl, when told I was waiting on line six. Apologetic Arizona State fans, their BCS hopes having taken a giant shot between their little horns and pitchforks, were on lines 1-5, inquiring about room rates at Circus Circus during Christmas Week.

That’s exactly what I was calling about — and Kunzer-Murphy knew it.

TKM was in Tempe on official bowl business. In the first half, anyway. In the second half she took off her Las Vegas Bowl blazer — actually, she refuses to wear a blazer like all the other bowl game officials — and started cheering, as any proud UNLV alum had every right to do.

But she said her UNLV diploma will get the Rebels only so far, provided they go on to become bowl eligible. After that, they’ll need at least two more wins for the Las Vegas Bowl committee to even shoot them a sideways glance.

Saturday, she was looking straight down on the Rebels from the press box. So was Larry Baber, president of the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego, which also has a Mountain West tie-in. Nobody from the New Mexico Bowl was there. Nobody in the press was complaining that much.

New Mexico is one of my favorite places in the world. The people there are wonderful. So are the Navajo tacos. I went to college there. Most of my immediate family lives there. I was a big Al Unser fan. (Bobby, not so much.)

If it comes down to a bowl game, I’d still rather stay home or go to San Diego.

The Las Vegas Bowl gets first choice among the Mountain West bowl-eligible teams. Even if Brigham Young or Utah runs the table and crashes the good ol’ boys club known as the Bowl Championship Series, where the rich get richer while teams from the Mountain West and WAC and MAC wail and gnash their teeth, the local bowl game committee would have some explainin’ to do if it bypassed, say, the loser of the BYU-Utah game, with one or two losses, for a UNLV team that had only six or seven wins.

Plus, one of these nights Las Vegas is going to have to stand up and be counted. The Rebels have played in two Las Vegas Bowls, neither of which sold out, which would be  embarrassing if it weren’t so sad.

In today’s bowl business — emphasis on business — it’s not so much how you play the game, but how many are willing to travel to watch you play the game. The average UNLV fan won’t drive from Summerlin to Sam Boyd Stadium to watch the Rebels knock helmets.

Take Saturday’s crowd. It was announced at 25,567, which, at first blush, was a significant improvement over the 18,815 that turned out for the season opener against Utah State. At second blush, it wasn’t that significant, not when you consider about 5,000 of the 25,567 came from Ames.

They Came From Ames. Sounds like one of those old horror movies. (Actually, the ISU crowd was totally well-behaved. It won’t be that way this week when UNR visits Sam Boyd Stadium. I heard UNR fans are bringing tomahawks this year. Rebels fans are bringing Molotov cocktails.)

Getting back to the arithmetic, the Rebels’ stunning victory at ASU, one of the most memorable in school history, resulted in only about a 2,000-spectator bounce at the turnstiles. The Rebels would have been better off inviting the governor of Alaska to be guest offensive coordinator. They could have let her shoot a moose or something at halftime.

As stated earlier, the turnout would be embarrassing if it weren’t so sad.

The bowl people noticed.

“There’s too much yellow (in the stands),” Baber said. “And a lot of that red isn’t UNLV red.”

He should know. That blazer he was wearing wasn’t UNLV red, either. It looked like something a villain on “Batman” would wear, or some guy who wins a big golf tournament. Now I know why Kunzer-Murphy wasn’t wearing a blazer. If she did, she said, after I teased Baber, it would be purple.

But Baber said he was impressed with the Rebels. This was halftime, mind you, when UNLV led 21-0. Kunzer-Murphy said nothing would please her more than to see the Rebels win eight games (or more) and force her to make a tough decision after the Utah-BYU game.

If Omar Clayton keeps hitting Phillip Payne on fade patterns in darkened corners of the end zone, she just might have to.