"No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted."
-- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
OK, so we know that UNLV and UNR hate each other. And we know that anytime their football teams get together, ugliness will ensue. Witness: A riot in 1995 UNLV destroying the historic Fremont Cannon in 2000. UNLV running up the score in 2001.
Ugliness also tends happen in Las Vegas, at Sam Boyd Stadium, the home field for the UNLV Rebels. Witness: A mysterious power outage at the game earlier this year against Wisconsin, just before the game was "official," nullifying all the bets on the game. This raised eyebrows, seeing as betting on Nevada's two college teams was legalized just last year.
Yep, we knew it was going to get ugly when the two teams faced off last Saturday. The only question was what specific form that ugliness was going to take.
Usually, the ugliness is provided by the UNLV side. This year, I regret to report, all the ugliness came from the Reno side.
I was there, with friends Matt, Mark and Lindsay. We were rooting for the boys from Reno -- me because I am a Reno man, and the other three because they had wagers placed on UNR.
Our seats were a delight -- about 10 rows up, on the 40-yard line. We sat right behind an older married couple. The man wore UNLV red; the woman wore UNR blue. This, I thought, was an interesting marriage.
In the first half, both teams played like they had chugged too much cough syrup. They played sluggishly, especially UNR, which managed only two field goals, in large part because they didn't have a strong running game. Chance Kretschmer, UNR's star running back, hobbled the sidelines right in front of us, out for the season because a couple of bastards from BYU decided to hit him several yards out of bounds a couple of games ago.
One of the more festive moments came when in the midst of the game, after some cretin sitting in the UNR student section chucked a plastic beer bottle onto the field. Throwing something onto the field is never an acceptable course of action during a sporting contest, but in any case, what happened next was pretty stunning.
As the crowd booed, a referee went and retrieved the plastic bottle. The ref then made an announcement to the crowd saying that the home team -- yes, UNLV -- would be penalized if such a thing happened again.
The crowd then got somewhat frantic, realizing the potential repercussions. If more UNR fans wanted to act like bonerheads, the other side would get punished for it. What a deal. The UNLV partisans were quite flustered, while the UNR partisans thought this was quite hilarious.
Fortunately -- and I must admit, surprisingly -- no more beer bottles would be hurled during the game. The UNR fans behaved and acted intelligently.
Too bad the same can't be said for the UNR players.
By now, you know what happened -- after trailing the entire game, the Wolf Pack came back and took the lead, 17-14, with fewer than nine minutes left. On the next drive, UNLV's offense sputtered and had to punt. Smelling blood, the Pack tried to block the kick. They failed. They did, however, manage to run into the punter.
Yep. There it was. Ugliness.
Instead of getting the ball back, UNR was penalized 15 yards for the would-be punt blockers' stupidity. First down, UNLV. Of course, UNLV would score and take the lead, 21-17.
The husband in front of us went crazy. If looks could kill, his wife would have killed him.
The crowd was in a joyous mood. They chanted. RE-NO SUCKS! RE-NO SUCKS!
"Yeah, Reno sucks; it's just like Las Vegas, but without the traffic and 120-degree weather," I told Mark, an Atlanta native who's lived in Vegas for four years. He nodded and snickered at my remark, but only out of sympathy; he's never been to Reno.
The lights stayed on as UNLV ran out the clock, and UNLV won, 21-17. It should be noted that after being favored by about 2 points all week, UNR suddenly became a 2-point underdog in the hours before the game. And UNLV would go on to win by only four.
Hmm. Just a little somethin' somethin' for the conspiracy theorists, eh?
Ah, controversy. You have to love the UNR-UNLV rivalry.
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who is depressed because his two football teams, Nevada and Stanford, are a combined 3-6. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org.