It is listed as a University of Nevada-Las Vegas home football game but good luck on trying to find a replica jersey of any of the Rebels' quarterbacks around Las Vegas.

Want a No. 15 University of Hawai'i quarterback Colt Brennan jersey in green and black? Well, that's a different story entirely. Outlet malls have 'em in the window.

Want to tailgate with family and friends from Hawai'i? No problem, you can do it Saturday afternoon and catch special buses to the game.

So, exactly who's home game is Saturday's non-conference meeting between UH and UNLV again, anyway?

The Rebels staunchly maintain it is one of theirs, being in their town and on their home field, Sam Boyd Stadium, and all.

And, that's another thing. The Boyd Gaming Corp. is one of UH's largest corporate sponsors, a platinum level donor that gives in excess of $100,000 a year to UH. And who UH is trying to hit up for a few million bucks in capital improvements to Cooke Field.

Not for the first time, but perhaps more dramatically than before, UH and its fans are making themselves at home at a place that is getting to be less and less like a road game. Which is saying something for a game 2,762 miles away — as the fleet of jumbo jets fly — from Aloha Stadium.

Early estimates expect 10,000 to 12,000 Hawai'i fans — those journeying from the Islands and those transplanted to Nevada — to be in attendance. They could make up from 30 to 50 percent of a crowd expected to reach 20,000 to 30,000.

And, to hear UNLV coach Mike Sanford tell it, that's just hunky and dory. "We love that; we think that's just awesome," he said, even welcoming the haka. A school spokesman said they'd "rather have a stadium half full of (Hawai'i) fans than play in a stadium that's half empty."

Of course, it isn't only Boyd Stadium that will be filling up with UH faithful. A Boyd spokesman said several of the group's nine Las Vegas properties are already sold out for the weekend.

Probably not for the last time, either. Athletic director Herman Frazier, under fire for lollygagging on the 2007 schedule, has had UNLV signed — home and away — through 2012 for quite a while.

Even UH coach June Jones, who might roll his eyes if he were asked to give up a date at home to play a non-conference road game at, say, Wyoming, Washington State or Utah, embraces the concept of going to Vegas. After a week spent in Louisiana and Houston, where the Warriors have been working out since Sunday, Las Vegas is looking good.

"Vegas is almost a home game for us," Jones notes. "It feels like one."

It figures to this week.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.