Distant BYU vs. UNLV football game recalled
If you are one who looks on the bright side, should UNLV lose at Brigham Young on Saturday — the Rebels are like bazillion-point underdogs — at least the plane ride home will be shorter than the first time the teams met.
Besh Cooper, a frequent poster on Review-Journal message boards, pointed out the first time the Cougars and Rebels played was in Japan, in 1978. They called it the Yokohama Bowl; it was played at Yokohama Stadium, home of the Yokohama BayStars baseball franchise in the Japanese Central League.
Yokohama Stadium, which has since hosted Michael Jackson and Madonna concerts, was practically brand new then. It opened in April of 1978; BYU and UNLV played there in the last game of the season, on Dec. 2, 1978.
BYU won 28-24. Attendance was 27,500, just a couple of thousand under capacity.
It was the Rebels first year in Division I. UNLV went a respectable 7-4 under Tony Knap, which included victories over established programs such as Hawaii, Colorado State, Wyoming and UTEP.
A fullback named Leon Walker was UNLV’s star, with 922 rushing yards on 130 carries for an average of 7.1 yards per carry. Marc Wilson was the UNLV quarterback that season, backed up by Jim McMahon.
Not much was written about the 1978 Yokohama Bowl. The first thing that popped up in a Google search was a Japanese restaurant called Yokohama Rice Bowl in Tucson, Ariz.
