Split end Jimmy Ray, offensive tackle Jed DeVries and linebacker Jermaine Younger have been selected to play in the Blue-Gray senior all-star game in Montgomery, Ala., on Christmas Day. They leave for that game Saturday from Las Vegas.
Ray, who's been idle most the season with a foot hairline fracture, knew before the season started he'd go to the Blue-Gray game, and Younger was told a few weeks ago to be prepared to go on to Alabama, but DeVries found out recently."My dad was so happy he took a half day off work to be with me," DeVries said.
"I'm nervous about Alabama," adds DeVries, a fifth-year senior from Ogden. "I won't have any coaches with me." That means he, Younger and Ray have to find their way around themselves.
Ray says his foot is about 80 percent healed; he will play for the first time since the season opener.
Junior linebacker Willie Jackson (9.4 tackles a game through five games) was practicing with the team after knee surgery but won't play Friday.
These Aggie players have never been to a bowl game, so they were apparently oblivious to the fact that they didn't receive first-class treatment for their first meal in Las Vegas Tuesday.
After the welcome out front of the Sands, which is undergoing massive remodeling, the Aggies were sent to a tiny back room for lunch. It might have been large enough to pack in 96 grade-school kids but certainly not that many football players. Many ate standing up, elbow-to-elbow.
The players were just interested in eating after the bus ride from St. George, but athletic director Chuck Bell was angry and held a couple hours' worth of discussion with hotel management and embarrassed bowl committee members. The room was not the one Bell was promised during a site-inspection tour two weeks ago. Bell was able to get future meal sites changed to more appropriate quarters, and the hotel will throw in tickets to tonight's show for the team.
Redshirting junior-college transfer Ivie Russell was to have been here but returned home to California after the shooting death of a close friend.
Utah State is 0-4 in bowl games, but the Aggies' record in this stadium, the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl, is 5-2, including wins in the last three trips. All games were against UNLV. USU is 4-1 all-time against MAC teams.
The Mid-American Conference has won the last two bowl games against the Big West (1991 California Raisin Bowl in Fresno, Bowling Green 28, Fresno State 21; 1992 Las Vegas Bowl, Bowling Green 35, Nevada 34). Ball State lost in its only MAC/BWC bowl appearance (1989 Raising Bowl, 27-6 to Fresno State).