Goodies await bowl participants

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

You know, bowl season.

Yes, it might be the first year of the College Football Playoff, but there also are plenty of bowl games for teams that don’t make the four-team tournament.

Which means nice gifts for the players in those bowls.

The NCAA allows bowls to give up to $550 in gifts to each of the maximum of 125 participants, and SportsBusiness Daily/Journal published its annual list of the gifts.

Some will hand out gift cards for the bowls, which begin play with five games on Dec. 20, that range from $150 for the Outback Bowl to the oddly priced $447 at the Russell Athletic Bowl and Citrus Bowl. The gift cards at those bowl games are for Best Buy.

Bowls also will dole out everything from Xbox One consoles to brand-name sunglasses and headphones.

The hometown Las Vegas Bowl? The publication lists an Oakley Works backpack, but that’s not the only gift the bowl hands out. Next week, players on both competing campuses will have the opportunity to visit a Las Vegas Bowl gift suite and select items valued up to $300 that includes Beats by Dre headphones, speakers, a recliner and remote-control airplane.

Players will receive more gifts when they arrive in Las Vegas for the game.

And, of course, there is the gift of being in Las Vegas itself and then being home in time for Christmas. It certainly beats playing in the Detroit Bowl on Dec. 26 or being in Shreveport, La., for the Independence Bowl on Dec. 27.

■ TRYING TO KEEP UP — The rumors have been all over the place on what the Fertittas might or might not commit financially if UNLV hires Bishop Gorman High School’s Tony Sanchez as its football coach.

It’s difficult to know what’s true and what isn’t.

This, however, is without dispute. The Rebels are badly behind in the race for better football facilities, and they keep slipping by the day.

Colorado State announced Friday it has received approval for construction of a new on-campus stadium. This in the same week the Rams made $7 million for letting coach Jim McElwain take over at Florida. There’s so much bluster in Fort Collins, Colo., that former athletic director Jack Graham said Colorado State hopes to end up in the Big 12 Conference.

Bluster in athletics isn’t always bad.

Colorado State has made all the right moves with its program in recent years, beginning with snagging Alabama’s offensive coordinator three years ago in McElwain. To replace him, it’s doubtful they will hire a high school coach.

Maybe going that route will work for UNLV, though, but whether Fertitta money is or isn’t part of the package, the risk couldn’t be much higher for the Rebels.

■ MAKING IT PAIN — A story will occasionally break about an athlete and a strip club, and it’s not good.

This time, an athlete went to a strip club and walked out a hero.

Georgia offensive lineman Zach DeBell went to such an establishment in Athens, Ga., and trouble arose between another patron and a dancer. A bouncer tried to remove the customer, 59-year-old Joseph Kirkland, but he began to punch the employee.

That’s when the 298-pound DeBell “carried Kirkland out of the bar by his belt and collar and had placed him on the sidewalk outside the front doorway,” the police report stated.

Best play by a Bulldog this season. Not that there were many good ones.

COMPILED BY MARK ANDERSON LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL