EDITORIAL: Utah-BYU Holy War bolsters Las Vegas Bowl

Here's something longtime valley residents thought they'd never hear: Today's Las Vegas Bowl is a scalpers' paradise.

College football fans are eager to pay well above face value for tickets to the game. Indeed, among all nonmajor bowl games, tickets to a contest that's generally a bowl calendar afterthought are now among the most sought-after on the secondary market.

That's what happens when you bring the Holy War to Sin City. And it doesn't hurt that it's a short trip for the participants and their fans. Utah, ranked 22nd, will face Brigham Young today at Sam Boyd Stadium, with kickoff at 12:30 p.m. As the Review-Journal's Mark Anderson reported, the game sold out all 38,500 seats on Dec. 7, just a day after it was announced.

This is a great matchup, the revival of a rivalry on hiatus the past couple of seasons as a result of both programs leaving the Mountain West Conference — Utah for the richer coffers of the Pac-12, BYU to become an independent. But it's also a matchup of two 9-3 teams that have quality wins over major foes this year. In fact, Utah was in the running for a berth in the four-team playoff before its late-season fade.

Most bowl games fill TV airtime and provide teams with an excuse to party at the end of the season. It's a reward, though often a money-losing one for the schools involved. And, boy, are there are a lot of crummy games in the run-up to the more prestigious New Year's Six contests.

But the Las Vegas Bowl gets one of the fiercest rivalries in the nation, with fan bases that can't stand each other.

It's not unfamiliar territory for BYU, without whom the Las Vegas Bowl might not even be around today. The Cougars played in the postseason game at Sam Boyd five straight years beginning in 2005, against big-name Pac-12 opponents that included UCLA, Arizona, California and Oregon. Before that run of BYU berths, the Las Vegas Bowl was a lagging contest that couldn't fill seats, had no TV audience and generated little buzz.

BYU saved the game, and now with help from its archrival — the two teams' history dates to 1896, with Utah leading the series 57-34-4 — we'll see a packed house today at Sam Boyd. So let's welcome the state of Utah to Las Vegas. It's going to be a great game on the field — and a great atmosphere off it.