One of the national selling points laid out for the Poinsettia Bowl is the traditional trickery of Boise State football. And the Broncos fueled that talk by unleashing a lot of unconventional stuff in November, including three touchdown passes by wide receivers. The culmination was Tanyon Bissell’s 35-yard TD strike to Julian Hawkins with a reverse pass against Fresno State. And just in the nick of time, Austin Murphy’s January, 2007, Sports Illustrated feature on the three trick plays that won the Fiesta Bowl is running this week in the “SI Vault”
at SI.com.
But BSU sometimes bristles at the “gadget”
label. Are they “trick”
plays or “deceptive”
plays? Chris Petersen said during the season, “It’s just semantics. We’re just trying to score.”
These are things in the Bronco playbook that are repped every week. One look sets up another variation of it for the future. And when the time is right, voila. Petersen called it part of the Broncos’ culture that’s very important to his players in practice. “They get ‘em right early—or they know we’re throwin’ ‘em out.”
There will be some creativity required at the Poinsettia Bowl to keep the TCU defense honest.
Didn’t I just talk yesterday about how TCU coach Gary Patterson “has found a groove he doesn’t want to relinquish at TCU despite being courted by BCS programs near and far?” You can decide whether Auburn is near or far. Because according to the Birmingham News, Auburn interviewed Patterson yesterday for its vacant head coaching job. That would make seven coaches who have gone through the initial process of replacing Tommy Tuberville. Patterson has been head man at TCU for eight years, and many are amazed such a hot commodity has lasted that long.
The three guys at the desk become the three guys in the booth at the Poinsettia Bowl, as Rece Davis, Mark May and Lou Holtz will call the game on ESPN. Mark May? The guy who claimed Boise State would have lost four games if it had played in the Mountain West this year? Already message boards are alive with ideas for signs to hold up in the stands at Qualcomm Stadium.
A couple points of interest from the Walter Camp All-America football team announced yesterday: TCU defensive end Jerry Hughes is a first-teamer, and there’ll be more honors where this came from. Hughes led the nation in sacks this year with 14, a Mountain West record. And Idaho punter T.J. Conley has become the Vandals’ first Division I-A All-American. Conley led the nation in punting this season with a 47.4-yard average.
The way the Denver Post tells it, former BSU star Jeb Putzier was driving from Boise to Houston when he stopped in Denver to buy DVDs on how to learn Spanish. "Because it was a 36-hour drive,"
Putzier told the Post. "And I got this crazy phone call."
Denver wanted Putzier back, almost three years after he played his final game at Invesco Field. The Broncos have signed the Eagle High grad to replace tight end Nate Jackson, out for the season with a hamstring injury. And with Tony Scheffler battling a groin injury, Denver doesn’t have a vertical receiving threat at tight end. That’s what Putzier provides. Jeb was released by the Seahawks last month.
Boise State men’s hoops tries to pick up the pieces tomorrow night against San Francisco in Taco Bell Arena. After a 38-point hammering by BYU Wednesday night, in what mindset will the Broncos be? The guards and wings are the first players to touch the ball on each possession, and those guys combined for a mind-numbing 22 turnovers against the Cougars. Anthony Thomas is looking for vindication—as BSU’s only returning starter and veteran point guard, he was 0-for-5 from the field and turned the ball over six times.
We know what new San Francisco coach Rex Walters’ mindset is. He’s trying to get the Dons to visualize the glory days of old, when they won back-to-back national championships in 1955-56. Walters has brought back the old “U.S.F.”
uniform design worn by Bill Russell and K.C. Jones during the years when the Dons compiled a 60-game winning streak. “You want to lay the foundation of what we’re going to be about, and we’re doing that,”
said Walters. “But part of understanding where we want to go, we also have to look back at where we were—the good times and the bad. There have been a lot of great times.”
San Francisco is 6-4 but has been playing good teams close, including losses by five points at USC and by six Tuesday night at Pacific.
The Idaho Stampede make a quick trip to SoCal tonight, facing the L.A. D-Fenders for the first time this season. It’ll be the first time the Stampede have seen the D-Fenders since beating them in the first round of the D-League Playoffs last spring. At that time, Coby Karl was playing for L.A. Now, of course, the former Boise State star is toiling for the Stamps. The game will be a Staples Center prelim to tonight’s Lakers game against the Sacramento Kings. The Stampede then come right back to Qwest Arena to host the Utah Flash tomorrow night.
Northwest Nazarene hosts the second annual Wendy’s Classic this weekend at the Ian Johnson Sports Center in Nampa. The tournament will mark College of Idaho’s first games on NNU’s floor in almost nine years, though the Coyotes won’t be facing the Crusaders. The Yotes play San Diego Christian tonight and NNU takes on Montana Western. The local teams switch opponents tomorrow night. C of I comes in at 4-6, while the Crusaders are 5-2.
An interesting reunion awaits the Idaho Steelheads in Anchorage this weekend. Two guys at the heart of their two ECHL Kelly Cup championships, Scott Burt and Lance Galbraith, will be suiting up for Alaska as the Steelheads and Aces open a three-game series tonight. Galbraith has been particularly hot since going to the Frozen North, with seven points in six games. First and foremost, though, the Steelheads have to figure out a way to get the puck past Alaska goalie Jean-Phillipe Lamoureux. He was the ECHL Rookie of the Month for November after going 8-2-1 with a goals-against average of 1.90.
The word “cozy”
often doesn’t fit when describing sports venues as the “cozy confines.”
Au contraire in Bronco Gym when Boise State has a wrestling match. It’s usually packed and loud in there, and the Broncos hope that’s the case tonight against Pac-10 rival Oregon State. BSU is coming off a seventh-place finish at the prestigious 44-team Las Vegas Invitational, where Kirk Smith won the 184-pound championship. Smith is ranked fourth in the nation.
This Day In Sports…brought to you by BBSI…your human resources management company.
December 12, 1981: A Boise State-Idaho State matchup for the Division I-AA national championship is ruined by Eastern Kentucky, who avenges the loss to the Broncos in the previous year’s title game. The Colonels got past BSU, 23-17, in Bronco Stadium to advance to the final the next week against ISU. The Broncos’ last chance was snuffed when Gerald DesPres, the lead-footed but inspirational French-speaking Canadian quarterback, misunderstood the play call and tried a quarterback sneak on fourth-and-three (though he did come up just a yard short).
