Crystal ball suggests bowl in Rebels’ future

Excuse any typos in the following because it is October and UNLV football has yet to be eliminated from bowl consideration and that kind of radical occurrence might tend to play tricks when hunting and pecking for ways to comprehend it all.

From now until late November, from the Rebels playing at Colorado State today to ending at San Diego State five days before Thanksgiving, here are a few predictions for how some Mountain West Conference story lines will play out:

UNLV will be bowl eligible.

We are so confident of this, we contacted head officials from the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East and Southeastern Conference and other conferences that might be assigned a UNLV postseason game to assure them the Rebels should not continually be flagged for 12 men on the field.

The extra guy is coach Mike Sanford, who spends more time on the playing surface than any player. Not that we're complaining. The sight of Sanford sprinting 50 yards downfield to argue a call he couldn't possibly see is one of the more entertaining moments each week.

But what you think of a team in August isn't always the same as in October. Expectations can change. You can play your way into much larger doses of hope. Case in point: a certain major league baseball team in Florida.

UNLV at 3-2 has shown enough improvement offensively that when you add a remaining schedule that includes four home games and the fact it still gets to play three teams that own losing records today, six wins seems more likely than long shot.

UNLV averages nearly 27 points, nine more than 2007. It's going to score enough against most teams. Problem is, it tends to stop people like a Tonka truck might a Hummer.

I'm not sure what defensive adjustments UNLV made at halftime against UNR, but whatever they were needed adjusting. If the Rebels don't make a bowl, it will be because they give away points like See's does samples.

Still, it's a fairly positive forecast for UNLV:

Wins -- Home against New Mexico and Wyoming.

Losses -- At Brigham Young and home against Texas Christian.

Toss-ups: At Colorado State, home against Air Force and at San Diego State.

At least three more victories are out there. I trust Sanford will find them between assuming a three-point stance on third-and-long.

Therefore ...

Fish tacos and Sea World or an evening of stale pizza at Roller King?

It's a question we ultimately might look back at Oct. 18 to answer. That's when UNLV hosts Air Force, which at 3-1 also appears headed toward a December of bad chicken dinners and trying not to laugh when bowl officials show up wearing hideous jackets stolen from Jesper Parnevik's closet.

Consider: The Mountain West has four bowl tie-ins, and teams with six or seven wins usually are in the mix for invitations to the New Mexico (Dec. 20) or Poinsettia (Dec. 23) games.

Which means the winner of UNLV-Air Force could have a slight advantage of playing in paradise (San Diego) over the town former San Diego State coach Al Luginbill once termed a "God-forsaken place" (Albuquerque, N.M.).

UNLV's secret weapon in such a scenario could be Las Vegas Bowl executive director Tina Kunzer-Murphy, whose game will be played on the same day as the one in the God-forsaken place.

The last thing she wants is the Rebels and their fans and, more importantly, her bowl's entire media relations' staff -- which is employed by the university -- out of town.

You can bet Kunzer-Murphy already is working the phones trying to sway Poinsettia officials on the advantages of taking UNLV over Air Force should they face that choice, and trust me: If it's one person you want arguing on behalf of the program, it's her over anyone high in the UNLV athletic department.

She, after all, knows what she's doing.

Tears will flow in Salt Lake City on Nov. 22.

The happy and sad kind.

This is the day Brigham Young plays at Utah, the day Kunzer-Murphy must deal with fake smiles from whichever side loses, the day one Mountain West Conference team sprints into the Bowl Championship Series party and the other tries to put on a good face about coming to the Las Vegas Bowl.

Kunzer-Murphy runs a fantastic game, but if the Cougars and Utes each enter their rivalry undefeated and ranked in the top 10, all the iPods and Under Armour gear in the universe won't satisfy whichever team eventually lines up for those Las Vegas gift packs.

I suppose BYU could trip up at TCU on Oct. 16. I suppose the Horned Frogs could win in Salt Lake City on Nov. 6.

I also suppose UNLV made halftime defensive adjustments against UNR.

Maybe next time we'll notice one.

Ed Graney can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.