Los Angeles Times: California's Struggles Land It in Las Vegas Bowl

By Lonnie White, Times Staff Writer
LAS VEGAS — After getting off to a 5-0 start this year, California's football season hit a tailspin, with the Bears losing four of their final six games.As a reward for their inconsistent play, the Bears will face Brigham Young tonight in the Las Vegas Bowl, which will be more like a home game away from home for the Cougars at Sam Boyd Stadium." That's OK, because one of our favorite things to do is go play on the road and by the end of the game, have our fans take over the stadium," Cal senior defensive back Donnie McCleskey said. "We know that we'll hear some boos, but that's fine with us."Playing in the Mountain West Conference, BYU (6-5) plays against Nevada Las Vegas annually. So once the Cougars accepted their first bowl bid since 2001, BYU fans made sure that the Las Vegas Bowl had its first sold-out game in its 14 years.Before this year, the most tickets sold for the Las Vegas Bowl was 30,894 when Utah and USC played in 2001. This year's game at the 38,000-seat Sam Boyd Stadium has been sold out for weeks."It really helps us being in this environment before," BYU quarterback John Beck said. "It's also helps that BYU fans really travel so well to Las Vegas."Behind first-year Coach Bronco Mendenhall, the Cougars have had somewhat of a bounce-back season after a three-year bowl drought. With Beck leading a balanced spread shotgun-based offense, BYU showed flashes of seasons past when the Cougars traditionally dominated defenses under the guidance of former coordinator Norm Chow.BYU, which lost close games to ranked Texas Christian and Notre Dame during the season, won three of its final four games to become bowl eligible and gladly accepted a bid to face Cal in Las Vegas."I see this as the beginning of the road and not the end of the road in terms of our program," said Mendenhall, who is attempting to lead BYU to its first bowl win since the 1997 Cotton Bowl. "I'm not sure if this game necessarily means more to us than it does for [Cal] but in the Mountain West, we're working hard to gain credibility and the conference takes any bowl game seriously."A year ago, Cal was in a similar situation. After being the odd team out in the BCS bowl mix, the highly ranked Bears ended up in the Holiday Bowl and were upset by Texas Tech.Coach Jeff Tedford said the Bears (7-4) learned from the lesson."I've been pleased with the leadership and maturity of this team," said Tedford, who is 32-17 in his four seasons at Cal. "All of our players are excited about matching up with BYU."The key for Cal will be the play of junior quarterback Steve Levy, who led the Bears to a victory over Stanford to close the season. Levy, who replaced shaky Joe Ayoob, gave the Bears stability."He brings a lot of confidence, toughness and poise to the position," Tedford said about Levy, who completed 10 of 18 passes for 125 yards and a touchdown against Stanford. "We're here to win the game and Levy gives us the best chance to do that."