Instant Analysis - Oct. 14
Boise State 28 ... Tulsa 21
Pete
Fiutak
A smart man once said (actually, I'm assuming
someone smarter than me must have said this at some
point in a more meaningful situation) that you don't
get what you want if you don't ask for it. I
completely and totally understand why and how Boise
State head coach Chris Petersen is saying that he's
not worrying about any quest for perfection, and
he's not thinking about or preaching the idea of
shooting for the national title. The opposite
approach is Fresno State, who under head coach Pat
Hill has as shot for the stars, only to go into the
tank after missing a few steps along the way. But at
some point, Boise State needs to play with its hair
on fire, at least a little bit, and it needs to sell
the college football world on why it belongs in the
national championship discussion, because the game
at Tulsa sure didn't do it.
I would love nothing more than to try to champion
the fight for someone like Boise State to get its
shot at Apollo Creed for the heavyweight
championship of the world. There are pieces to play
with in the discussion ,like the astounding decade
of success, the performances against some big name
teams, the ruthless efficiency, the upgrade in
talent, and the great coaching. If Ohio State can
win ugly and be in the national title discussion,
and if Virginia Tech can slog past Duke, then why
can't Boise State just win, baby? It's because
it's too tough a sell.
Oklahoma obliterated Tulsa 45-0 with Landry Jones
throwing for six touchdowns. Does that mean Boise
State can't play with Oklahoma? No, but it means
that when we're supposed to compare apples to
oranges, especially on the heels of a sluggish win
over UC Davis, that it's hard to give a team with
this bad a schedule a whole bunch of credit. But
we'll be happy to give Boise State the BCS bid.
Fine, go to Glendale or Miami and knock yourself
out, but if Boise State wants to really enter the
true big time and be a program that's worthy of
being in the top five, and not just because it's
unbeaten, then it has to start making its case.
Sell the fact that the defensive line dominated when
it had to. Sell the fact that you were going for the
win, and not trying to add any extra style points
for the stupid by kicking a field goal instead of
going for the touchdown late in the third quarter.
Sell the fact that Oklahoma gave up 269 yards of
Tulsa total offense and you gave up 295, with 53
coming on one play for an early score. Sell us that
this is all just a learning experience for your team
as it tries to build towards something big in
January. I'll buy that. I'll buy that your goal is
to play for the national championship, or at worst a
BCS game, and every game before that goal is just
the preseason. Sell us on something, because if you
don't, then we'll all have nothing else to go on but
a seven-point win over freakin' Tulsa, and then
we'll be more than happy to cast you aside to watch
Ohio State, like the BCS did last year when it came
to the filling its Fiesta Bowl slot.
Richard
Cirminiello
Vegas thought Boise State would win by eight. The Broncos won by seven. Just because the nation’s No. 5 team didn’t blow out Tulsa is not cause for alarm.
Nothing changed Wednesday night at Skelly Field. Boise State still has the inside track on a BCS bowl bid. In fact, even more so now that one of the biggest remaining hurdles has fallen. It’s still going to win another WAC championship. And it still hasn’t proven it belongs in any serious talks regarding a spot in the national championship game; not with a schedule that features one ranked team…before Labor Day.
Boise State is an outstanding program that, with the right circumstances, can defeat just about any team in the country. Any team. However, if 40-point wins are your only measure of success for teams from smaller conferences, you’re going to be disappointed by the Broncos. Remember that this is the same school that only beat UC Davis 34-16 when it was last on the field. As long as Boise State keeps winning, there’s no reason to pull out the microscope. The Broncos are doing just fine at the halfway point of the season.
Matt Zemek
1) We can forget the national title debate with Boise State. If you’re going to play in the ultimate college football game of the season as a non-AQ representative, you need to beat multiple heavyweights and whack the bejeezus out of the cream puffs and cupcakes on your schedule. Boise plainly hasn’t done that. Even the manly and mighty 19-8 win over a really good (albeit body-snatched) Oregon team was a very ugly display of football.
Here’s what’s hard to accept about Boise State: I trust the Broncos to play their best when a big occasion arrives. Chris Petersen brings his A-game, and his players avoid the sloppy mistakes seen tonight in Tulsa, when Boise State plays the Oklahomas and TCUs of the world. Boise State will make a great BCS bowl representative, but the sad fact in college football is that if you’re a little guy and not part of the old-money crowd, you need to be at your best each and every week to earn a maximum of respect in the sport. Boise State would give Virginia Tech and Texas a very strong run on a neutral field; the problem is that as long as Petersen’s pupils leave stacks of points on the gridiron as they did tonight in the state of Oklahoma, the people who rarely watch Boise State—but were tuning in tonight—will think very little of the Broncos’ overall quality. That’s a shame, but it’s likely to characterize the buzz around the country in the hours after this Wednesday night high-wire act.
2) Todd Graham, like so many of his brother coaches, has yet to realize that when you’re trailing late in a ballgame, you don’t enjoy the leverage to act as though you’re leading a game. It should be so simple: When you’re trailing a talented Boise State team by seven with just over four minutes left in regulation, and your offense is facing a 4th and 3 near midfield, you don’t punt the ball. You need to possess the pigskin in order to tie or win. You need to put pressure on the Broncos and trust your playmakers, such as the dynamic Damaris Johnson, to do something special. If you’re playing Iowa’s offense or Penn State’s offense, you might have reason to punt, but not against Boise State’s offense. The Broncos didn’t put the game away, but they did gain a first down, exhaust Tulsa’s timeout supply, and maneuver into a more favorable position as the game wound down. Coaches have to act aggressively when they trail late in games; Todd Graham needs to realize this lesson for himself and his program.