Aug. 1, 2003
LAS VEGAS - Another UNLV football game time has been set as the Rebels' home match-up with San Diego State on Saturday, Nov. 8 will kick off at noon PT in order to be televised as the Mountain West Conference Game of the Week by ESPN+Plus, the league announced.
Veteran network announcer Gary Bender is back for his second season doing play-by-play for the weekly package along with analyst JC Pearson. They will be joined this season by a new sideline reporter, Anne Marie Anderson.
The MWC Game of the Week, which begins Sept. 27 and runs through Nov. 22, will be shown on 19 outlets across the nation, including KFBT-TV Gold 33 in Southern Nevada. UNLV has appeared on ESPN+Plus seven times since the league's inception in 1999, holding a 3-4 record. Also, the Rebels' game at Air Force on Oct. 11 and home battles vs. Utah on Oct. 18 and Colorado State on Nov. 22 are all listed as possible choices for the package, which can be selected up to 12 days before kickoff.
Also, the annual Battle for the Fremont Cannon vs. UNR on Oct. 4 will be televised by ESPN Regional at UNLV and appear live on Gold 33 starting at 7 p.m. The Rebels will face the Wolf Pack at Mackay Stadium under the lights for the first time ever.
The announcements mean the non-conference portion of UNLV's 2003 schedule is set. The Toledo game kicks things off on Friday, Aug. 29 at 6 p.m. on ESPN. However, the Sept. 6 game at Kansas will not be televised because ESPN Regional at UNLV could not gain permission from the Big 12 Conference to televise the game back to Las Vegas.
"We hoped to bring UNLV's first road game of the year back to Southern Nevada's television sets but the game will be played in a window that is owned by Fox Sports and unfortunately we will not be allowed to broadcast," ESPN Regional at UNLV general manager Tina Kunzer-Murphy said.
The school's Sept. 13 trip to Wisconsin will be shown on ESPN2 at 9 a.m. PT and the Friday, Sept. 19 game vs. Hawaii will also appear on ESPN2 at 6 p.m. PT. One of UNLV's conference games, vs. BYU on Oct. 25, has already been selected by ABC-TV and will kick off at 4 p.m.
