By Ryan Comer
For the Mountain West Conference, the Las Vegas Bowl is the ultimate goal short of a BCS Bowl game.
It''s a bowl that gets the first selection of any bowl eligible team in the Mountain West Conference and more prestige than any other bowl game with a Mountain West Conference tie-in.
For the Pac-10, it''s pretty much a last resort. For teams in the Pac-10, in case you don''t get into a BCS bowl game, you can still get into prestigious games in the Holiday or Sun Bowl. Then, if all else fails, there''s the Las Vegas Bowl.
It''s because of this vast difference that speculation has run rampant, with many saying the contest isn''t as evenly matched as it should be.
Last season Oregon started the season strong, winning five of its first six and seven of its first nine, giving itself a legitimate chance at winning the Pac-10 and heading to the Rose Bowl. But the Ducks limped to the finish line by losing to USC, Arizona and Oregon State in their final three games. The Rose Bowl selected USC, the Holiday Bowl selected California, the Sun Bowl selected Oregon State and the Ducks had to settle for what was left, the Las Vegas Bowl.
Meanwhile, BYU ran the table in the Mountain West, going a perfect 8-0 and winning its final nine contests.
Both teams were clearly heading in opposite directions and all throughout the Cougars'' 38-8 victory over the Ducks, ESPN analysts said the Ducks lacked motivation and intensity. They said the game was a perfect example of having two teams in a bowl game with one wanting to be there and wanting to show their best and the other not wanting to be there and hardly trying at all.
Ducks'' head coach Mike Bellotti made news just days before the contest by commenting that the Cougars couldn''t compete in the Pac-10, further cementing the belief the Ducks really didn''t want to be there.
'They have some fine players who could play anywhere in the Pac-10, but collectively, no, they couldn''t compete at the highest level in the Pac-10,' Bellotti said on a sports-radio program. 'They lost to Arizona this year.'
After the game was over, Belotti was asked if he still believed the Cougars couldn''t compete in the Pac-10. Bellotti responded by saying on that day the Ducks themselves couldn''t compete in the Pac-10 but that his assessment of the Cougars had not changed.
This year Las Vegas Bowl officials have once again selected the Cougars, this time pairing them with UCLA (6-6).
Just like last year, the Cougars are riding a conference championship and a nine-game winning streak into the game. Meanwhile, much like Oregon in 2006, UCLA is limping in.
The Bruins started the season strong, winning five of their first seven, including their first four Pac-10 games. But the Bruins skidded to the finish line, losing four of their last five.
Patience is running thin in Pasadena as the Bruins are 13-12 since the beginning of the 2006 season. And except for a 2005 campaign that saw the Bruins finish 10-2, they are just 25-25 since the 2003 season began.
Tired of mediocre finishes, the Bruins fired head coach Karl Dorrell on Monday.
With the bowl game just a short two and a half weeks away, analysts wonder if this year''s UCLA team will play the Las Vegas Bowl the same way last year''s Oregon team did.
BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe said he expects nothing short of the Bruins'' finest.
'That''s where they want to go,' Holmoe said. 'They want to go to Las Vegas.'
Cougars'' head coach Bronco Mendenhall simply doesn''t care.
'All I can do is prepare our football team for what I think is a very good opponent,' he said. 'I don''t have any control over how they may view the game.'
This has been Mendenhall''s mantra ever since he took over as head coach at BYU. It doesn''t matter who the Cougars play. It doesn''t matter where they play or what time they play. It doesn''t matter if they are playing Utah or Eastern Washington. It doesn''t matter what the media is saying, or not saying. He will prepare his team the very same way every single week.
While some may grow tired of the same lines week in and week out, one can hardly argue the success it has brought Mendenhall. Mendenhall is the first coach in BYU football history to take three straight teams to three straight bowl games in his first three years. The team boasted a winning streak of 11 games, a streak that for three hours was the longest in the nation, before losing to UCLA 27-17 earlier this September. Currently, the team has a nine-game winning streak, the second longest active winning streak in Division I-A football. The team has won 20 of its last 22 and has collected two consecutive 10-win seasons for the first time since 1989-90.
And so the routine will be the same as the Cougars prepare for the Bruins. Mendenhall may be disappointed his team didn''t finish ranked high enough to play in a BCS game, but he puts the responsibility on himself for losing two non-conference games at the beginning of the season. As a matter of fact, he actually seems to relish the opportunity to play UCLA again.
'We''re very excited to be again in the postseason with a chance to grow our program and continue climbing in terms of national respect and prominence,' he said. 'Our entire focus will be on playing the very best football game we can play in December.'
Senior linebacker Kelly Poppinga looks at the matchup as a way to once again showcase the Cougars on a national level and, in fact, help next season''s team.
'We''re 17th right now in the BCS and by going in and winning this game it gives us an opportunity to start next season hopefully ranked and gives next season''s team a better opportunity to reach a BCS game,' Poppinga said.
Some will disagree with the Las Vegas Bowl''s current system; how it has allowed BYU to face a 'middle of the road' Pac-10 team for two consecutive years,
Some will be upset because the two teams have already played once this season and are scheduled to play each other again next season in Provo on Sept. 6, making it three times in less than a 12-month period that the two teams will have squared off.
More than anything, the latter is what Mendenhall takes issue with.
'Certainly both teams will do their best every time we play but yet there''s something to be said for playing an opponent once a year, learning the lessons, letting those sink in and then playing them again the following year,' Mendenhall said. 'By design, that''s what we as coaches would prefer to have,'
But Mendenhall has decided to take an optimistic outlook on that stance as well.
'I think the argument could be made, how many times do you have a chance to possibly redeem or show improvement against the exact same opponent in the same year,' Mendenhall said. 'As far as I''m concerned, this is a positive thing for our team as long as we (look at it) in that context.'
Despite Mendenhall and Poppinga''s attitudes, some BYU players aren''t particularly thrilled.
Senior linebacker Bryan Kehl is one of them.
'I would like to play someone in a similar ranking position as us,' Kehl said following the Cougars'' 48-27 victory at San Diego State last Saturday, before their bowl opponent had been announced. 'Don''t care who, don''t care where but I''d like a spirited, competitive contest and for us to play a fourth or fifth place (Pac-10) team (is) not fair to our conference and college football fans in general.'
The situation is what it is though, and the Cougars recognize there is nothing they can do to change their bowl opponent. They can''t just snap their fingers and insert Illinois or Wisconsin for UCLA, although both of those teams are ranked more closely to the Cougars and would likely provide more intrigue.
All they can do is prepare to play the very best game possible to move the program forward.
'We really can''t control the factors outside,' Holmoe said. 'If you can play some new faces, everybody would like that better. ' it''s not the first it won''t be the last.'