Presented by FRANZ WITTE NURSERY.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015.
Kind of interesting how it’s worked out. Looks like Kellen Moore will be suiting up for a regular season NFL game for the first time on Sunday, serving as the backup quarterback behind Brandon Weeden for the Dallas Cowboys. But don’t blink. The Cowboys acquired Matt Cassel from the Buffalo Bills yesterday as a longer-term solution while Tony Romo’s broken clavicle heals and will groom the journeyman as the No. 2 guy. Moore could return to the Dallas practice squad next week, or he could remain on the 53-man roster. But if it’s the latter, life would likely be like it was in Detroit—the former Boise State great would be the Cowboys’ No. 3 QB and be inactive for games.
Trying to decipher what this means for Moore is complicated, but longtime NFL agent Derrick Fox tried to help clear things up yesterday on Idaho SportsTalk. According to Fox’s estimation, Moore would go from a $6,600 per week practice squad salary to more than $38,000 for this one game. If Dallas moved Kellen back to the practice squad, he’d have to clear waivers first, which means any team would be able to claim him during a 24-hour window. Incidentally, the Cowboys play the Atlanta Falcons Sunday in AT&T Stadium, and Moore is slated to wear No. 17 (the same number he had in Detroit).
Boise State, headed for Virginia today, has turned it around on special teams since the downer night by that unit against Washington. There never was a question about Tyler Rausa, though, and he set the placekicking bar a little higher against Idaho State. Rausa was set to boot a 40-yard field goal in the fourth quarter, his longest attempt of the young season. Then the Broncos were flagged for a delay of game, and it became a 45-yard try. With the game safely in hand, many were anxious to see if Rausa could hit from that distance with the popcorn poppin’. He did—connecting on Boise State’s second-longest field goal since the Kyle Brotzman days. The only one longer was a 47-yard boot by Dan Goodale against Wyoming two years ago. The Broncos’ last 50-yarder came off Brotzman’s foot against Fresno State in 2010.
There have been local ties every game of the season so far for Boise State. This week it’s Larry Lewis, a linebacker on the Broncos’ 1980 Division I-AA national championship team and the former head coach at Idaho State. Lewis is now the special teams coordinator and tight ends coach at Virginia. The kid from Vale got into the profession right after graduating from Boise State, spending 18 years on Mike Price’s staffs at Weber State and Washington State. Lewis then became head coach at Idaho State and guided the downtrodden program to back-to-back eight-win seasons in 2002-03 and a share of a Big Sky championship. Since leaving ISU after the 2006 season, he’s assisted at Colorado State and Nevada. Lewis was steered to Virginia in part by Jon Oliver, a former Borah High and Boise State basketball player who’s now the Cavaliers’ executive associate athletic director.
In ESPN The Magazine (and at ESPN.com), Wayne Drehs penned a lengthy feature last week on new Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Sanford, who held the same post at Boise State a year ago. Drehs talked about Sanford’s journey, from his disappointment over losing out to Jared Zabransky for the Broncos’ starting quarterback job as a senior in 2004, to his task now as the “QB whisperer,” bringing along Fighting Irish sophomore DeShone Kizer with Malik Zaire having been lost for the season. It was Kizer who threw the winning touchdown pass at Virginia a couple weeks ago with 12 seconds left.
Drehs noted Sanford’s knack for pushing the right buttons with quarterbacks, writing, “Last season at Boise State, Sanford proved just how valuable he’d become. Five games into the season, after Hedrick threw four picks in a 28-14 loss to Air Force, Sanford and head coach Bryan Harsin warned the senior he was in danger of losing his job. As they left the closed-door meeting, Sanford patted his QB on the back. ‘He said, ‘Let’s go, man,’’says Hedrick. ‘It was something so small, but it just told me that he still believed in me. That simple pat—that’s all it took.’ Hedrick threw only five more picks in nine straight wins.” The sixth-ranked Fighting Irish host UMass on Saturday.
Utah State star Chuckie Keeton talked this summer about never having been able to play against Boise State. Now it looks like he never will. This is not a shock: Keeton has been diagnosed with a sprained knee and will be out 4-6 weeks, a period that would take him beyond the Broncos’ visit to Logan October 16. Keeton was hobbling noticeably in USU’s loss at Utah two weeks back, and it didn’t get much better last Saturday at Washington. Because of knee injuries, Keeton has been limited to just 12 games since the 2012 season. The Aggies have a bye this week before facing Colorado State in a key Mountain Division game October 3.
In effect, Idaho faces “Wofford, The Sequel” Saturday in the Kibbie Dome. The problem is, Georgia Southern takes it up a level. Like the Terriers, who the Vandals defeated last week 41-38, the Golden Eagles run the triple-option with abandon. Georgia Southern picked up 383 yards on the ground in their 48-13 thumping of The Citadel while Idaho was allowing 326 yards and 7.4 yards per carry to Wofford. The Eagles beat the Vandals 47-24 last year in Statesboro. An upset of the defending Sun Belt champions in Moscow would be the biggest win of coach Paul Petrino’s career.
The College of Idaho tries to break a three-game losing streak Saturday, and the Coyotes will have to do it on the road at Montana Tech, ranked 15th in the NAIA. The Yotes lost one of their weapons in the running game last week when former Vallivue Falcon J.J. Hyde suffered a broken leg. That puts more on the shoulders of quarterback Teejay Gordon, who has shown that he can be a gamer. In the 42-27 loss to Southern Oregon, Gordon ran for 80 yards and became the 12th C of I player in history to rush for 1,000 in a career. He also set a new career-best with 20 completions on the day, passing for 179 yards.
Now we’ll find out how much weight being the top American finisher carries. Boise’s Kristin Armstrong came in fifth in the time trial yesterday at the World Cycling Championships. Had she made the podium as one of the top three, Armstrong would have earned an automatic spot in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. We’ll see how it shakes out from here. The two-time Olympic gold medalist has had to earn every iota of this chance. After announcing her latest comeback last spring, Armstrong thought she was set for the U.S. team at the Pan American championships in Mexico—then was removed from the squad when a different set of criteria was used. At the age of 42, she remains in “prove it” mode.
There are two more players aboard as the Idaho Steelheads gear up for training camp in about 10 days. Rookie forward Quinn Smith and rookie defenseman Andrew Panzarella have agreed to terms with the Steelheads, with both hailing from elite college hockey programs. Smith just finished his four-year career at Boston College as an alternate captain. He was part of BC’s 2012 national championship team. Panzarella played four seasons at North Dakota.
This Day In Sports…brought to you by BERRYHILL…comfortably tucked in—in Downtown Boise.
September 23, 1973: Four field goals by George Blanda lead the Oakland Raiders to a 12-7 win over the Miami Dolphins, who suffer their first loss after the previous season’s 17-0 record. That snapped the Dolphins’ 18-game winning streak, the NFL record at the time. Blanda, at the age of 46 and appearing in his 300th pro game, booted one field goal in each quarter. And rookie Ray Guy, appearing in his second pro game, helped a dominating Raider defense by averaging 49 yards on six punts.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment Sunday nights at 10:30PM on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors five sports segments each weekday on 93.1 The Ticket. He also served as color commentator on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football for 14 seasons.)
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