Have you made your hotel reservations for Las Vegas yetfi

While the bowl invitations probably won't be extended until next Sunday, it almost seems a certainty that the 10-2 BYU football team and its fans will end up in Vegas for the fourth straight bowl season.

Like you, I can from repeat from memory the sequence of events leading up to the Las Vegas Bowl game itself ...

• A meet-and-greet at the ESPN Zone in front of New York, New York (Ha ha, look at the football players singing "Viva Las Vegas").

• BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall standing sheepishly between two statuesque Vegas showgirls for photos while getting play-calling advice from Elvis.

• BYU practice at Valley High School and donuts afterward.

• Lunch at In-N-Out Burger (actually, I'm looking forward to that).

• The players visit a hospital and see "Blue Man Group."

• We listen to some ancient ESPN personality tell off-color jokes during the bowl banquet (cut to shot of Mendenhall's stone-faced reaction).

• A near rumble between the two teams at the Outback Bowl on Fremont Street.

I'm starting to feel like Bill Murray in the movie "Groundhog Day."

It's easy to forget that just four years ago, BYU was coming off its third straight losing season and would have gone to Toronto to play in the International Bowl if it could only get bowl eligible. In raising the bar, Mendenhall has also raised expectations to a ridiculous level.

Going to a common bowl game -- and especially a fourth straight trip down I-15 to Sin City -- just doesn't cut it anymore.

But that's where BYU is at in 2008, and the players and coaches will put on a good face about the same old, same old bowl town.

Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Bowl is doing some damage control after comments by bowl committee chairman Tina Kunzer-Murphy that TCU brought "about 500 fans" to Las Vegas for the UNLV-TCU game earlier this month.

Everyone knows BYU will sell out the Las Vegas Bowl, and the Entertainment Capital of the World will do everything it can to get Cougar fans to break a $50 and maybe even a couple of the 10 Commandments while in town. One of the reasons the Las Vegas Bowl was created was to fill hotel rooms in the dead time before Christmas, and Cougar fans will do that.

But with the first pick from the MWC, the Las Vegas Bowl committee is getting pressure to select second-place TCU instead of third-place BYU, provided undefeated Utah gets the expected BCS bowl bid. If Las Vegas did take TCU, the matchup would be against the fourth- or fifth-place team from the Pac 10, leaving BYU to go to the Poinsettia Bowl and possibly play undefeated Boise State.

The Poinsettia Bowl, meanwhile, wants TCU and is lobbying the Las Vegas Bowl to give up the Horned Frogs. "Do us a favor, and we'll do you one in the future" is the message.

But more than likely, when the bowl bids come out next week, BYU will end up in Las Vegas against Cal or Arizona.

More "Groundhog Day," anyonefi

There are worse things for a college football team, like staying home for the holidays. Bowl games means extra practices for Mendenhall to coach up his younger players so 2009 doesn't turn out like 2008. Bowl games mean the possibility of gaining momentum for the following year, even though BYU wasted that momentum this season by failing miserably in big games against TCU and Utah.

A bowl game is a reward for the players. They get a week on the town, a bevy of gifts and more playing time.

For the rest of us, it's a re-run.

One of my favorite scenes in "Groundhog Day" comes when Murray crashes his truck into a ravine in an attempt to kill himself because he's tired of re-living the same day over and over again. His cameraman and producer watch the whole thing. The cameraman says, "He might be OK." Seconds later, the truck explodes, so he turns to the producer and says, "Well, probably not now."

If there are big advantages in re-living the Las Vegas Bowl experience over and over again, I'm starting to forget what they are.

• Daily Herald Sports Editor Darnell Dickson can be reached at 344-2555 or by e-mail at ddickson@heraldextra.com