Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2002 | 8:55 a.m.
Christmas came about 10 months early for Tina Kunzer-Murphy.
The executive director of the Las Vegas Bowl announced on Tuesday that the Christmas Day bowl game had entered a coveted two-year agreement with the Pac-10 Conference to take its No. 5 team while also extending its agreement to take the Mountain West Conference's runner-up for three more years.
The Las Vegas Bowl beat out the Seattle Bowl and the yet-to-be-approved San Francisco Bowl during a presentation before Pac-10 athletic directors last week in San Diego.
"It's great news for us to have the Pac-10 Conference affiliated with our bowl game for at least two more years," Kunzer-Murphy said. "Last year's game with USC and Utah here turned out to be such a big success for us."
Utah defeated the Trojans, 10-6, last Christmas before a record paid crowd of 30,894 as well as a national television audience on ABC in a similar Pac-10 vs. Mountain West arrangement.
"SC was very, very positive about their experience here," Kunzer-Murphy said. "They spoke very highly about their experience at that meeting. I think that helped us a lot. Having a tie-in with such a prestigious conference as the Pac-10 is a big plus for us. You look at all the great teams in that conference and you know that we're going to be getting a very good team from them."
There will be some changes for Las Vegas Bowl XI, however.
Because ABC recently won the bidding for NBA television rights over NBC, this year's game will be on ESPN cable instead of network television. ABC is expected to televise NBA games instead.
"We're disappointed that we're off ABC," Kunzer-Murphy admitted. "It was absolutely a great deal having people like Brent Musburger and Gary Danielson and Jack Arute here televising our game. Hopefully we can get them back to do it for ESPN."
"Network TV vs. cable is virtually the same now as far as its reach," said Bob Burda, assistant commissioner for communications for the Mountain West Conference. "It's like splitting hairs, really."
The 12:30 kickoff, which also proved popular because of much warmer game-time temperatures than previous night kickoffs, also could change.
"It may moved back to 1:30, or it could be later," Kunzer-Murphy said. "It'll still be in the afternoon, but probably a little later depending on the NBA games. But a 1:30 kickoff might be better for us because it would give fans another hour to celebrate Christmas in the morning before heading to the game."
The Mountain West Conference is expected to announce today that it will once again send its champion to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis.
The conference is still weighing options on where to send its No. 3 team. Last year Colorado State helped inaugurate the New Orleans Bowl with a win over North Texas. The San Francisco Bowl, which will try to be accredited by the NCAA in April, is also interested.
"Right now we have an opportunity to renew with the New Orleans Bowl," Burda said. "A couple of other bowl games have also expressed interest."
The Pac-10 will continue to send its champion to the Rose Bowl and runner-up to the Holiday Bowl. The Sun Bowl in El Paso gets third choice of Pac-10 schools followed by the Insight.com Bowl in Phoenix and then the Las Vegas Bowl.
Each team in the Las Vegas Bowl will again receive a payout of $800,000 this year.
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