BYU football: Las Vegas (Bowl) is Cougars's home away from home

PROVO — Brigham Young University and Las Vegas make quite the odd couple.

The LDS-owned school is the perennial No. 1 stone-cold sober university in the nation. It has a stringent honor code and a football coach that emphasizes the spiritual aspects of life.

Las Vegas is nicknamed Sin City and is known for its glitz, glamor and gambling. It features The Strip, showgirls and racy billboards that can make a grown man blush.

BYU's reputation, and that of Las Vegas, clash like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Elvis impersonators. But when it comes to the Las Vegas Bowl, the two disparate entities have complemented each other very well. Thanks to this annual December football game held at Sam Boyd Stadium, it's a place where "Come, Come Ye Saints" and "Viva Las Vegas" converge.

In retrospect, it's somewhat amazing to think that prior to 2005, BYU had never played in the Las Vegas Bowl.

If, as expected, the Cougars receive an invitation today to play in the Las Vegas Bowl for the fourth consecutive season, it will simply be a continuation of what athletic director Tom Holmoe and coach Bronco Mendenhall predicted for the program back in '05.

When BYU, under then-first-year coach Mendenhall, accepted an invitation to face Cal in December of that year — marking the Cougars' first bowl berth since 2001 and snapping three consecutive losing seasons — everyone connected with the program was elated about going to the Las Vegas Bowl.

And the feeling was mutual. At that time, the Las Vegas Bowl needed to sell more than 29,000 tickets to the 2005 game in order to maintain its bowl charter with the NCAA. That year, BYU delivered the Las Vegas Bowl's first-ever sellout.

Before that game against Cal, both Holmoe and Mendenhall figured it would not be the last time BYU would play in the Las Vegas Bowl. And they were right. Starting in 2006, the Las Vegas Bowl became home to the Mountain West Conference champion.

"This is just the beginning of many more," Mendenhall said in December 2005. "The (Las Vegas Bowl) will be for the conference champion from this point on. What better way, as they're getting ready to go into that role, for us to go into that role as well."