Presented by JORDAN’S HALLMARK.
Friday, December 12, 2014.
Safe to say the perception of Boise State football is a bit different now than it was at the end of September. After the entirely discouraging loss at Air Force, the Statesman’s Brian Murphy wrote, “This was the type of loss that calls into question everything about the Boise State football team.” Yes, the season was at a crossroads. “No telling what lies ahead for Grant Hedrick,” said Tom Scott in the Scott Slant. “The Mountain Division of the Mountain West is wide open after Boise State's loss. BSU is back at square one.” Then there was the national stuff, like this from Dan Wolken of USAToday.com, who had the Broncos at No. 2 on his weekly Misery Index: “Fans of winning programs tend to think success will go on forever, but it rarely happens that way.” And, “Saturday's 28-14 loss to Air Force could engage a full-on crisis.” Crisis averted, and how.
There was a lot of talk about “the fork in the road” coming up the following Saturday at Nevada. Which turn would Boise State’s 2014 season take? Now we know. The Broncos carry an eight-game winning streak into the Fiesta Bowl, their longest since a 10-game run wrapped around the end of the 2010 season and the beginning of the 2011 campaign. Instead of toiling in anonymity as they prepare for the postseason, they’ll be back in the national conversation for the next three weeks, which has staying power on the recruiting trail. Oh, and little-known fact: Boise State’s win over Fresno State in the Mountain West championship game was its 100th victory on the blue turf (against four losses) since the beginning of the 1999 season.
Boise State offensive coordinator Mike Sanford has been one of the shining stars of Bryan Harsin’s young new staff this season, and Vanderbilt noticed. Reports say Commodores coach Derek Mason, with whom Sanford coached at Stanford, offered him the O-coordinator position at the SEC school. Sanford, however, has withdrawn his name from consideration and will stay with the Broncos despite a chance to double his salary. The improvement and expansion of Sanford’s Boise State offense in October and November was striking.
Jay Ajayi has the first All-America honor of his career after being named second-team yesterday by USA Today Sports. The junior standout is the first Boise State running back to earn an All-America nod since Ian Johnson in 2006. Ajayi has also been tabbed a finalist for the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award that goes to the best college player with Texas ties. He leads the nation with 325 rushing attempts, ranks second with 25 rushing touchdowns and 2,225 all-purpose yards, and is fourth with 1,689 rushing yards.
Catching up on the hardware haul for star Arizona linebacker Scooby Wright III going into the Fiesta Bowl. There’s more. Wright won the Chuck Bednarik Award last night as college football’s best defensive player. Wright also won the Rotary Lombardi Award presented Wednesday night to the nation’s most outstanding defensive lineman or linebacker. That goes with the Bronko Nagurski Award he took home Monday. To review, Wright was the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year after ranking in the top five among FBS players for total tackles with 153, tackles-for-loss with 28, sacks with 14, and forced fumbles with six. He’s the only FBS player to rank in the top 25 of each of those categories.
We were talking quite a bit about this last week leading into the Mountain West championship game. Now, “X” marks the spot. It was 20 years ago today that Pokey Allen rode the horse down Broadway, two days after Boise State upended Marshall in the Division I-AA semifinals. Pokey had promised to get on the horse if 20,000 fans turned out for the Marshall game, one week after only 15,000 watched the Broncos’ rainy second-round win over Appalachian State. Boise State hit the 20,000 mark, and those fans were noisy—just like the 26,000 last Saturday in the title game—as the Broncos rallied from 24-7 second-quarter deficit to win 28-24. It’s ironic that Marshall was tied to Boise State’s fortunes this season.
The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl has garnered its publicity in some strange ways over the years. Today it’s through one of the game’s coaches a week from tomorrow, Troy Calhoun of Air Force. Calhoun’s opinion of the College Football Playoff carries some weight, since he’s the outgoing chair of the NCAA football rules committee. "It's un-American, bottom line," Calhoun said of the playoff setup in the Colorado Springs Gazette. "We live in a country where upward mobility is possible, where games should be played out on the field." Calhoun said he thinks that the field should contain eight, if not sixteen teams. His Falcons have been upwardly mobile this season, tying TCU and bowl opponent Western Michigan for the biggest turnaround in college football this year with a seven-win improvement.
It was never a game last night, at least not after Boise State went on a 23-0 first half run, as BSU drilled Northwest Nazarene 91-51 in Taco Bell Arena. NNU caught the Broncos at the wrong time—they shot 56 percent from the field and 54 percent from beyond the arc. While Derrick Marks led the way with 19 points, James Webb III was a highlight man, scoring 18 points on 8-for-9 shooting with 11 rebounds to record his second straight double-double. Webb has earned his floor time. “Just make it easy for me to decide who to play,” said coach Leon Rice. Webb has done that. “He makes me an idiot if I don’t have him out there.” Montigo Alford played after all, coming off the bench to contribute nine points and four of Boise State’s 20 assists. The Broncos now host Southern Utah Sunday, while NNU heads to Pocatello to face Idaho State tomorrow night.
The last time the Idaho Stampede saw Reno guard Brady Heslip, he was draining a D-League record 13 three-pointers en route to 45 points in a 149-126 Bighorns win at CenturyLink Arena. Former NBA three-point deadeye Reggie Miller has tweeted about Heslip, and he was a guest on the Dan Patrick Show Wednesday (maybe the first time a D-Leaguer has ever been on). The Stampede, currently 3-5, are set to see him again tonight in Reno as their road swing continues—they visit the L.A. D-Fenders tomorrow night.
After an uncharacteristically slow start to the season, Alaska has righted its ship. The Aces had reached .500 with an 8-2 run over 10 games before falling 4-3 at Utah Wednesday night. The stretch included a two-game sweep of the Idaho Steelheads in Anchorage two weeks ago. The Steelheads have cooled off of late but are still leading the ECHL’s Pacific Division with 28 points—Bakersfield and Ontario are lurking one point back. The emerging Steelie right now is forward David deKastrozza, who netted his ninth goal of the season last Saturday. His ninth goal last season didn’t come until February 17. These will be the last two CenturyLink Arena appearances for the Steelheads until the day after Christmas.
Other weekend doings: the College of Idaho tries to improve on its 13-1 start with road tests at Oregon Tech tonight and at Southern Oregon tomorrow night. These are the last two games of the calendar year for the Yotes. The Boise State women are in Taco Bell Arena Sunday afternoon against Eastern Washington after beating C of I 91-40 Wednesday night. And the Boise State wrestling team goes into Pac-12 action now, and the first conference dual meet of the season is in Bronco Gym tonight. The Broncos will square off against Oregon State in the first of two editions of the Border War.
This Day In Sports…brought to you by ZAMZOW’S…nobody knows like Zamzow’s!
December 12, 1982: With snow falling throughout the day, the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins go scoreless into the final minute of their game in Foxboro. Mark Henderson, a convicted burglar on a work-release program who was operating a snow sweeper to keep the yard lines visible, drove onto the field with 45 seconds left to clear a spot for the Patriots’ John Smith to kick a field goal. Smith made the 33-yarder, and New England won, 3-0.
(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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