From all of us at Sports USA, you have our warmest heartfelt wishes for a very Merry Christmas and the happiest of holidays. It's an honor for us to think we're keeping you company while you wrap Christmas presents or make the trip to Grandmother's house. Just remember: We don't count toward using the carpool lane.

VIVA LAS VEGAS BOWL - It's our early Christmas present to our beloved Sports USA listeners when we bring you the 2009 MAACO Las Vegas Bowl from Sam Boyd Stadium on Tuesday, Dec. 22 at 8 PM EST, 5 O'Clock Pacific. When 16th-ranked Oregon State takes on No. 15 BYU, it will mark the first MAACO Las Vegas Bowl matchup of ranked teams in 19 years. The game was sold out shortly after the matchup was announced on Dec. 6. Moving the game away from Christmas Day a few years back was a very wise idea. Now schools can get their extra practice time in, spend a few fun days in one of the most exciting cities in the world and still be home in time for Christmas. It's a tribute to what the Las Vegas Bowl has to offer that you haven't heard any griping out of Provo about BYU making its fifth straight appearance. So much of the credit goes to Tina Kunzer-Murphy, the MAACO Las Vegas Bowl's dynamic executive director. Even in this tough economy, Tina was able to secure MAACO as a multi-year title sponsor after Pioneer concluded its involvement. Quarterback Max Hall leads a BYU team that ended Sam Bradford's Heisman incumbency in a stunning opening night upset of Oklahoma at Cowboys Stadium on Sept. 5. Brigham Young won an emotional rivalry victory over Utah to earn the right to accept the MAACO Las Vegas Bowl bid when Mountain West Conference champion TCU was summoned to the BCS and a Tostitos Fiesta Bowl matchup with Western Athletic Conference champion Boise State. The normally mild-mannered Hall, in fact, drew a MWC reprimand of his expression of, shall we say, distaste for Utah after the game. So the Cougars are thrilled to be in Sin City. Coach Mike Riley's Oregon State Beavers can be forgiven for lingering disappointment. They had a shot at the Rose Bowl in the annual Civil War game against Oregon, and just came up short. After Cal (1959), Oregon State (1964) has the longest Rose Bowl drought in the Pac-10 Conference. (Arizona only joined the Pac-10 in 1978.) But what the Beavers now have is a clear path to the National Football League. Matt Moore, who shredded the Minnesota Vikings defense Sunday night in a bid to supplant Jake DelHomme as the Carolina Panthers quarterback, is a proud Oregon State alum. Las Vegas native Steven Jackson used OSU's last Las Vegas Bowl appearance in 2003 to score five touchdowns and launch himself toward a first-round selection in the NFL Draft by the St. Louis Rams in 2004. This year, quarterback Sean Canfield has emerged as a prime NFL quarterback prospect under the tutelage of head coach Mike Riley. Riley is 36-16 in the last four years in Corvallis. He's 5-0 in bowl games since returning to Oregon State in 2003 following a four-year stint in the National Football League. On his first tour of duty at OSU in 1997-98, Riley merely put in place the foundation of the team Dennis Erickson took to an 11-1 record, a Fiesta Bowl blowout of Notre Dame and the nation's No. 3 ranking in the final Associated Press poll in 2000. Oregon State's Jacquizz Rodgers has established himself as the Darren Sproles of college football, following a Pac-10 Player of the Year campaign as a freshman with a school record-setting 20 touchdowns this season as a sophomore. Both teams are excited to be in America's most exciting city, and so is our team of Rich Cellini, Coach Gary Barnett and Roman Oben. Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret made the greatest movie ever named for a city. The MAACO Las Vegas Bowl under Tina Kunzer-Murphy's visionary leadership is fast achieving the same reputation among college football bowl games.

THREE IN THE TOP 12 - We've always admired the work of ESPN.Com college football reporter Mark Schlabach. That was long before he wrote that three of our Sports USA Radio Network bowl matchups rank among the top 12 this season. Schlabach has our New Year's Day matchup of No. 11 Penn State and No. 13 LSU as the fifth-best game of the bowl season. Texas A&M-Georgia in the Advocare V100 Independence Bowl Dec. 28 and Stanford-Oklahoma in the Brut Sun Bowl New Year's Eve are also in the the top 12.

DECLARE YOUR INDEPENDENCE BOWL - Get the calculators ready when Texas A&M meets Georgia in the Advocare V100 Independence Bowl Monday, Dec. 28 at 5 p.m. EST. Independence Stadium in Shreveport figures to be an aerial circus in this final contracted matchup of Big 12 and Southeastern Conference teams. Texas A&M put five touchdowns up on mighty Texas, and gave Nebraska the blueprint it built on to take down the Longhorns in the Big 12 Championship Game. Nebraska did win 12-10, you know. That the Big 12 officials in Cowboys Stadium were too gutless to tell the truth is not our problem. I'm still trying to figure out how they used a timed overtime, and only one second at that. Aren't both teams supposed to touch the ball in the college overtime format? But I digress. After feeling like they constantly needed a shower around former head coach Dennis Franchione, Aggie fans should be delighted with head coach Mike Sherman. Texas A&M played 18 different true freshman starters in this season which, with a couple of bounces, could have ended 8-4. Already this winter, A&M has signed three of the top 150 high school prospects in the nation. Quarterback Jerrod Johnson, a junior, has been the revelation. Succeeding four-year starter Stephen McGee, he has led an Aggie attack that ranks in the NCAA Top 25 in total offense, scoring, rushing offense and passing offense. Johnson grew up in Humble, Texas, outside Houston, dreaming of one day leading Texas A&M. On defense, we figure to hear a lot about Von Miller during the Independence Bowl. The junior linebacker from DiSoto, Texas had 17 sacks to lead the nation. He was also a finalist for the Ted Hendricks Award as the nation's top defensive end. "Von plays our 'Jack' linebacker position, which means jack of all trades," explained Sherman. We've changed up our defense this year, so sometimes he's a linebacker and sometimes he puts his hand on the ground as a defensive end. He can rush the passer, drop in coverage, blitz and stuff the run, hence, the Jack-of-all-trades." There's an interesting little echo of history in this Texas A&M-Georgia matchup. College football coaching legend Paul "Bear" Bryant and his Junction Boys got their first win at Texas A&M in 1954 against Georgia, between the hedges in Athens. Georgia coach Mark Richt would prefer an echo of the Bulldogs' 24-12 Capital One Bowl win over Michigan State last New Year's Day. Richt has established such a lofty standard of excellence at UGA that 7-5 overall, and (omigod) 4-4 in the SEC can look like shocking numbers. Richt and Pete Carroll can attest that the the NFL Draft can become an unprinted loss on your pocket schedule Carroll lost eight defensive starters to the NFL draft, and his marquee quarterback in Mark Sanchez. That's how you go from BCS bowl game to a bowl game with BC. The same Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno who were among the top 12 picks in the NFL Draft could have been playing at Georgia this year. "You know they're gonna leave sooner or later," Richt said. "You just hope it will be later." Georgia still has a feisty leader in senior quarterback Joe Cox, and one of the nation's premier receivers in sophomore flanker A.J. Green. Bulldogs punter Drew Butler won the Ray Guy Award, and kicker Blair Walsh was a finalist for the Lou Groza Award. In a matchup like this, they'll have to be key performers for Georgia. Richt fired defensive coordinator Willie Martinez, linebackers coach John Jancek and defensive ends coach Jon Fabris on Dec. 2. When all three turned down the option to coach in the bowl game, it meant Richt will take over the defense for the Independence Bowl. It should be noted that Georgia inaugurated a home-and-home series with Oklahoma State this season, and went to Stillwater for the first game. They did the same thing last year with Arizona State. Next year, Georgia will visit Colorado to initiate a new non-conference series. By playing Big 12 and Pac-10 schools, and going on the road to do it, Richt is sending a powerful message about Georgia football. LSU coach Les Miles did the same thing when he took the Bayou Bengals to Seattle to open the season against Washington this year. Unfortunately, the message might as well be Greek to Florida and its scandalous non-conference slate of Charleston Southern dance class, Troy West College and Florida International School of Beauty. There are a lot of people who'll tell you the beginning of the end of the Florida State dynasty was the day Richt left Tallahassee to take over at Georgia in 2001. Coach Richt will share some insights on the retirement of Florida State coach Bobby Bowden at halftime of the MAACO Las Vegas Bowl.

STAND-UP GUYS - We're very proud of our Sports USA sideline reporters, our only employees who work every day game standing up. Two of our stand-up guys are Roman Oben and Tony Graziani. Roman has had an impressive rookie season on the radio after 12 years in the National Football League with the New York Giants, Cleveland Browns, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (with whom he won a Super Bowl ring) and the San Diego Chargers. Roman is a native of Cameroon, the same ancestral homeland of Nebraska star Ndamukong Suh. He moved to the United States at age 4, and went on to play football collegiately at the University of Louisville (Hall of Famer John Unitas' alma mater), where he earned a degree in economics. While playing for the Giants, Oben earned his masters in public administration at Fairleigh Dickinson University. No one has ever had to explain the concepts of role model or public service to Roman. He founded the Roman Oben Foundation in 2003, the year he won the Super Bowl with Tampa Bay. It promotes the positive development of youth and family through football. Several times since 2003, Roman has returned to the land of his birth to distribute textbooks at schools and provide financial assistance to schools and orphanages. When the possibility of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh becoming a part-owner of the St. Louis Rams arose back in September, Oben didn't preemptively weigh whether speaking out could affect him politically, or financially. He wrote an op-ed published in the Washington Post expressing concerns about opinions Limbaugh has expressed in the past about African-Americans. Like we said, Roman Oben is a stand-up guy. He understands there is a great big world out there beyond the goalposts, and we should all do what we can to make it the best place it can be. Roman was on the sidelines again Dec. 5 at New Brunswick, N.J for our West Virginia-Rutgers broadcast. It alternately rained, snowed and sleeted on him for three hours. He must have felt like a mailman. But he never once complained. There should be no such weather channel complications on the sidelines at Sam Boyd Stadium for the 2009 MAACO Las Vegas Bowl. Tony Graziani, or Graz, as we know him, stood up for his alma mater, Oregon, at the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Association Christmas luncheon Dec. 16. Bob Miller, the Hockey Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Kings broadcaster who annually organizes the SCSBA Rose Bowl preview luncheon, told me Tony was a big hit with his insights and humor. I stood up for Penn State at the event a year ago. One of the perks was sharing a luncheon with the Rose Queen, and actually escorting her to lunch. That was one I crossed off my bucket list. Graziani was Oregon's backup quarterback when the Ducks ended a 37-year Rose Bowl drought in 1995. In the middle of the season UO starter Danny O'Neill had been felled by a mysterious finger infection, and Graz stepped in to win three big Pac-10 games. Tony went on to the Super Bowl with the Atlanta Falcons in 1999, and won an Arena Football League championship with the Philadelphia Soul. When Oregon goes to its second Beef Bowl at Lawry's The Prime Rib in Beverly Hills next Monday, Graz will proudly represent Sports USA. By the way, when Oregon met Ohio State in the 1958 Rose Bowl, one of the Ducks' stalwarts was none other than our own College Football Hall of Famer, John Robinson. Sports USA will be represented at Ohio State's visit to Lawry's Sunday night by the captain of our network broadcast ship of state, John Price. Since John is a proud Iowa alum who once tried out to be Herky the Hawkeye, we're asked him not to snarl at the Buckeyes. Too much.

ANOTHER MANNING BROTHERS DOUBLEHEADER - Our penultimate Sports USA NFL doubleheader kicks off Sunday at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands. Basically, it will be a playoff game to get to the playoffs when quarterback Eli Manning's New York Giants host the Carolina Panthers at 1 PM EST, 10 AM Pacific. At 4 O'Clock Eastern, 1 PM Pacific, we'll be off to Indianapolis, where Peyton Manning's Colts will try to stay perfect against the National Football League's best defense in the New York Jets. Big Blue was a sexy Super Bowl pick last August, before anyone knew how well young receivers Steve Smith, Mario Manningham and Hakeem Nicks would replace Amani Toomer and Plaxico Burress. Suddenly, the Giants have trouble winning at home. They've lost to Arizona, San Diego and Philadelphia in Giants Stadium since Oct. 25. It's possible we could listen in to the Giants' final game in their venerable home of the last 34 years on Sunday. The new Giants Stadium will open in 2010, ending an era in which its predecessor helped NFL teams boldly reject being second-class tenants in baseball stadiums. The building of Giants Stadium also re-established New York (as the crow flies, it's six miles from Giants Stadium to Madison Square Garden) as a major venue for college football. With Philadelphia asserting itself atop the NFC East, and the Giants still facing a trip to Minnesota on Jan. 3, the best New York might be able to muster is a wildcard berth. Of course, that was the path the G-Men traveled to their third Super Bowl title in franchise history two years ago, with road victories over Tampa Bay, Dallas and Green Bay enroute to the stunning upset of previously unbeaten New England in Glendale, Ariz. By the way, just ask the Vikings what kind of a softy Carolina is right now. The Panthers are 6-5 after an 0-3 start, and that includes a near-miss at New England two weeks ago. Julius Peppers is so thoroughly recovered from a midseason hand injury, Minnesota coach Brad Childress disclosed he considered benching Vikings quarterback Brett Favre for his own safety Sunday night in Charlotte. Matt Moore played so well on third down and in the fourth quarter against a team emboldened by the playoff homefield implications of the New Orleans Saints' loss a night earlier, he won a spot in the battle for the team's starting quarterback job in 2010. Anytime we welcome the Panthers to the national airwaves, we are reminded of Carolina owner Jerry Richardson, 73. He has been on a waiting list for a heart transplant for a year now. It's a cruel irony that a man who has such a deeply caring heart should suffer from heart disease. Merry Christmas, Mr. Richardson.

FOR RYAN OUT LOUD - I love coaches like Rex Ryan of the New York Jets. Some say he puts his mouth in gear before his brain is engaged. I say the man is all about heart. When you think with an organ other than your brain, (stuff) happens. The nice thing is, you never have to worry about Rex Ryan being honest with you. He doesn't have a audition lobe in his brain to preview comments to check for political correctness. The Jets coach initially sounded like he was surrendering after Sunday's devastating 10-7 Meadowlands loss to the Atlanta Falcons. After a day when three botched field goals mortally wounded the Jets, Ryan mistakenly thought his club was eliminated from AFC playoff consideration. He came out breathing fire again Monday to correct the record. Ryan has basically transplanted the Baltimore Ravens' defense 160 miles north on Interstate-95 to the Meadowlands. Since a 31-14 embarrassment at Foxboro on Sports USA Nov. 22, the Jets have allowed two touchdowns from scrimmage in four games. Darrelle Revis has emerged as the NFL's new superstar shutdown corner in 2009. Ryan's defense has opposing quarterbacks doing the Exorcist head swivel, it brings pressure from so many places and often, so unexpectedly. It will be the supreme test of the season for the unbeaten Colts. There are a lot of parallels to the Dallas Cowboys' win at New Orleans last Saturday night. Like the Cowboys, the Jets are fighting for their playoff lives. The Colts are nailing down the Coach of the Year Award for Jim Caldwell, the way he's getting his veterans some rest without taking his foot off the gas. Most of these Colts were there in 2005, when the club improved to 14-0 just as the news broke that Coach Tony Dungy's son had committee suicide. Indianapolis lost in Seattle on Christmas Day, and was never really the same that season. After the wildcard week bye, the Colts lost at home to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Divisional playoffs. Only a year later would they slay the "Can't-Win-The-Big-One" dragon in the AFC title game, and go on to win Super Bowl XLI. Interestingly, Indianapolis earned the bye again in 2007 as defending world champions. At home in sparkling new Lucas Oil Stadium, they were jolted by a San Diego Chargers team riding a huge wave of momentum from an unbeaten December and a bruising 20-6 wildcard win over the Tennessee Titans. Manning and company understand the delicate concept of momentum, and have experimented with many ways to lose it in the last four years. That's why they won't back off this year.