Las Vegas Bowl looks outside Pac-10 for MWC opponent

The MAACO Bowl Las Vegas has slightly increased its payout, and the game has new four-year agreements with the soon-to-be Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences.

It just doesn’t know if it will have a Pac-10 team this season. Southern California’s bowl ban removes one Pac-10 team from the mix for the Dec. 22 game, and another will be taken out of play if the conference sends Oregon and Stanford to Bowl Championship Series games.

In that case, the Las Vegas Bowl almost certainly will have to find an at-large team to play the top choice from the Mountain West at Sam Boyd Stadium.

"We’re going to watch real closely," Las Vegas bowl executive director Tina Kunzer-Murphy said. "It may happen, and we’re doing our due diligence."

Teams could be available from many conferences, including the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast. Iowa State and Texas Tech are the Big 12’s most likely at-large candidates, though Texas could find itself looking for a bowl.

"I can’t imagine if (Texas) is bowl eligible that somebody doesn’t scoop them up," Kunzer-Murphy said. "Wouldn’t that be great? I think if they’re bowl eligible, it doesn’t matter where they are."

Amid the uncertainty about the Mountain West’s opponent in the game, the bowl itself is more secure after recently agreeing to new deals with both conferences.

The game also increased its payout by $100,000 to $1.1 million, and the bowl receives the fifth choice from the Pac-10, which becomes the Pac-12 next season. The bowl previously was slotted to take the fourth- or fifth-place team.

■ CLASS MOVE — UNLV safety Alex De Giacomo quickly apologized Saturday after delivering an unintentional helmet-to-helmet shot on Brigham Young running back David Foote.

De Giacomo approached BYU’s Bronco Mendenhall and said, "Coach, I was just playing hard. I didn’t mean to do that. Please let him know that I’m sorry."

"It was really a class act, and I think UNLV has a lot to be proud of in how they’re teaching that particular young man," Mendenhall said. "There were two or three others that came over as well that said they hoped he was going to be OK. I was touched by it and very impressed."

De Giacomo and his teammates diffused a tense situation.

"It not only diffused it, it went right to (BYU players) kind of forgiving him," Mendenhall said. "It certainly wasn’t malicious and it wasn’t intended and it was, I think, in the nature of good sportsmanship. Our players understood that instantly after they could see how he reacted."

■ TCU/BIG EAST UPDATE — Mountain West fans probably can breathe a little easier after Texas Christian athletic director Chris Del Conte’s comments to Sporting News.

The Big East Conference plans to add two football-playing members, but Del Conte said any league interested in the Horned Frogs must consider taking all their sports.

"Whatever endeavor we do, you’re united as one," he said. "That’s who we are. That’s how we always compete. We compete as one unit."

The Big East, of course, could offer to take TCU as a complete athletic department, and that would give the Frogs something to think about.

But if TCU — ranked third in the BCS standings — reaches the national title game, that will prove the Frogs don’t need a BCS affiliation to get there.

"It’s a lot of rumors," Del Conte said of the Big East talk. "It reminds me of high school. ‘Who are you asking to go to the prom?’ Nothing has been done yet.

"From my perspective, there are a lot of teams in (automatic-qualifying) conferences that never, never have a shot at a BCS bowl game. We have a chance."

Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914.