Steven Jackson reveals why one Las Vegas Bowl wasn’t all that great

During Thursday’s ticket sales kickoff luncheon at Vinyl at the Hard Rock, it was repeatedly pointed out that the Las Vegas Bowl always is a great game.

This is what bowl game dignitaries say when it is revealed the game already is “86 percent sold out,” but there still is room at Sam Boyd Stadium for another 14 percent. The 25th renewal of the Las Vegas Bowl, pitting one of the top teams from the Mountain West against one of the underachieving ones from the Pac-12, is set for Dec. 17.

If the fact checkers were put on the case, they would discover the claim about great games is partially true. Take last year’s, for example. After Utah raced to a 35-0 lead in the first quarter, Brigham Young came storming back and made it 35-28 at the end.

Great game? Maybe not. Interesting at the end? You bet.

But Las Vegas Bowl XII, New Mexico vs. Oregon State on Dec. 24, 2003, was not a great game, nor was it interesting. Oregon State defeated New Mexico 55-14.

The man mostly responsible for the paucity of Christmas Eve cheer was the guest speaker at the ticket kickoff luncheon.

Steven Jackson, who played high school football at Eldorado, scored five touchdowns against the Lobos, a record that still stands, en route to an outstanding NFL career that would see him top 1,000 rushing yards in eight consecutive seasons with the St. Louis Rams from 2005 to 2012.

“In that game, New Mexico really kind of got under our skin — it was the whole lead-up,” Jackson said before bread was broken, and peanut butter-and-banana flavored mashed potatoes were served. “You sit down, you have buffets, you have press conferences, you have a buildup to the game …”

You have a pie-eating contest on Fremont Street, or similar event where trash is talked.

“But that’s what you want,” said Jackson, who retired from the pro football wars last year after being picked up the New England Patriots. “At the time, we were the Pac-10, and we supposedly were supposed to handle them handily, and they wanted to say ‘hold on, not so fast.’”

New Mexico may have wanted to say that, and maybe it did as pies were being devoured on Fremont Street. But after Steven Jackson scored those five touchdowns, the words seemed harder to come by.

VIVA LAS VEGAS BOWL FOOTBALL

During his remarks to local movers and shakers — i.e., potential group-ticket-package purchasers — at the Las Vegas Bowl kickoff luncheon, Steven Jackson stood at a lectern alongside a giant jeweled-encrusted football that looked like Elvis Presley’s jumpsuit.

Which was by design, this being the game’s 25th anniversary, and this being Las Vegas.

Reporters thought it would be really cool if the jewel-encrusted football could be shrunk and used as the game ball.

Alas, the Las Vegas Bowl teams have contracts with football suppliers and they will be bringing their own footballs, and there is a pretty good chance they will not be jewel-encrusted.

But Las Vegas Bowl director John Saccenti said the Elvis-style pigskins may be sold to the public as very cool souvenirs.

SUPPORTING SAM

A lot of politicians and electronic whizzes and some cops and a lot of Sam Schmidt’s family members and friends were on hand to watch the former IndyCar driver, rendered a quadriplegic by a crash 17 years ago, receive the nation’s first restricted driver’s license to operate a semi-autonomous vehicle during a ceremony/test drive at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

It was easy to tell who the real racers were.

They were wearing ball caps.

Seated among the big shots and well-wishers were Jimmy Vasser, the 1996 IndyCar champion when the series was still known as Championship Auto Racing Teams, and veteran IndyCar driver Oriol Servia.

“Motor racing can be very cruel at times, and to see the journey Sam has been on — not just with his racing team, but to bring awareness and to bring technology this far, is really a tremendous achievement,” said Vasser, who, like Schmidt, now owns an IndyCar team and makes his home in the valley.

“To see him get his driver’s license — that’s just super cool.”

STETSON WEARS BIG HAT

Stetson Stallworth, son of South Point arena director and former UNLV quarterback Steve Stallworth, was supposed to sit out the 2016 football season at NCAA D-II Adams State in Colorado as a freshman redshirt.

But when the Grizzlies couldn’t move the ball against Chadron State, Timm Rosenbach, a former Arizona Cardinals starting quarterback and UNLV offensive coordinator under Bobby Hauck, told young Stallworth to set aside the clipboard.

Stetson Stallworth threw two touchdown passes and ran for a third to lead Adams State to 31-30 come-from-behind victory over Chadron, the alma mater of NFL veterans Don Beebe and Danny Woodhead and former Wyoming basketball coach Steve McClain.

His old man still was smiling at the Las Vegas Bowl luncheon Thursday. I don’t think it had anything to do with peanut butter-and-banana flavored mashed potatoes being served.

ARNIE’S GOLF GAME

To honor the death of the great Arnold Palmer, I have vowed never again to play his golf game.

It was called Arnold Palmer’s Indoor Golf Course, with the course consisting of a foam putting green — which retained creases from being packed in the tall box and thus was more diabolical than the putting surface at Augusta National — a cardboard cutout of a water hazard and a couple of plastic bunkers and out-of-bounds markers.

The most distinguishing element of Arnie’s indoor golf game was a full-size golf club that had a plastic likeness of him molded to where the club face normally would be. You would snap little plastic woods and irons and a putter into the hands of plastic likeness Arnie. The club had a trigger — when you pulled it, it was supposed to send little Styrofoam golf balls flying around your parents’ living room in high and majestic arcs.

But most of the time when you pulled the trigger, the little Styrofoam golf ball would dribble a couple of feet and come to rest behind your dad’s shoe.

Eventually, my brother and I would put away Arnold Palmer’s Indoor Golf Course and play Electric Football.