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Wednesday Weekly…June 4, 2025.
The College Football Hall of Fame unveiled its 2026 ballot Monday, and there are two Boise State luminaries among the 79 FBS players and nine FBS coaches on it. Kellen Moore is in his familiar spot: a candidate once again. And for the first time, legendary Broncos and Washington head coach Chris Petersen is eligible, and he’s on the ballot. Petersen was a stunning 92-12 in his eight seasons at Boise State.
The guy who wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to be a head coach relented when Dan Hawkins left Boise State after the 2005 season—and became one of the all-time greats. And now Petersen is in line to be recognized as such if he’s elected. The announcement of the 2026 Hall of Fame Class will be made early next year, with the ceremony not coming until December of next year at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Seems like Petersen has a better shot than Moore, but I’m rooting for both.
PICK A PLAY
Good timing, as Athletic has had lists for everything the past couple of weeks, and in one of them, they asked 16 of the most respected offensive minds in college football for the favorite play calls of their careers. For Petersen (drum roll), it was in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl—but it was not Statue Left with Ian Johnson to win the game over Oklahoma. It was the play that made it possible, with the Broncos as on the ropes as they could get: 4th and 18 from the 50-yard line with 18 seconds left, and down by seven points. Yes, it was “Circus,” the hook-and-lateral from Jared Zabransky to Drisan James to Jerard Rabb. Never gets old.
DECK WEATHER
One hundred nine players reported for Boise State football summer conditioning last week. I remember back when that was voluntary 30 years ago. But it has become part of the deal in the 21st century—and any Bronco will tell you: that’s where the program’s chemistry and culture come from. They take it seriously. And with fall camp beginning at the end of July for the first time, summer drills are earlier, too. With that comes a time-honored Boise State tradition. The running of the decks, meaning up and down the upper deck of Albertsons Stadium over and over again, is the stuff of summer legend. And Mother Nature cut the Broncos no slack, ending May with a 100-degree day last Saturday. The first running-of-the-decks culminated with the Broncos jumping in the river.
UNBIASED ALL-CONFERENCE LIST
Chris Murray of Nevada SportsNet is a longtime respected WAC-slash-Mountain West beat writer out of Reno. Fair and balanced. Six weeks ahead of Mountain West Media Days, Murray has laid out a two-deep preseason all-conference team. And he has 12 Boise State players on it, five more than any other school in the league. Murray’s first-teamers from the Broncos: quarterback Maddux Madsen, running back Malik Sherrod (that one’s interesting), wide receiver Latrell Caples, tight end Matt Lauter, left tackle Kage Casey and right tackle Hall Schmidt. And that’s just the offense. On defense, Murray has edge Jayden Virgin-Morgan, tackle Braxton Fely, linebacker Marco Notarainni and safety Ty Benefield. That’s 10 first-teamers from Boise State. Colorado State has exactly zero. First team or second team.
COULD THE REBELS EVEN GO?
There’s seems to be some disagreement on UNLV’s current status as a Pac-12 candidate. Murray of writes that since the Rebels didn’t give notice to the conference last Friday, they aren’t going anywhere. “The big headline from the weekend was UNLV and Air Force not giving formal notice, which locks those schools into the MW through 2032 barring an invitation from a Power 4 conference,” according to Murray. “Nobody really thought UNLV was leaving for the Pac-12, but now that’s official.” The Rebels signed a grant-of-rights agreement with the Mountain West in February. But hey, is anything ironclad these days?
‘SANDLOT’ REFERENCE
Get ready for a round of “You’re killin’ me Smalls” in the stands at Albertsons Stadium some season soon. Hopefully it’s not after a false start. But Hakeim Smalls, a 6-4, 255-pound offensive tackle from Archbishop Murphy in Everett, WA, has committed to Boise State. “Smalls” is a fitting name right now, considering his size, but you can bet that will change when he gets on the Blue. The Broncos obviously had a successful weekend of official visits, as they also received three-star verbals Tuesday from another O-tackle, Kole Cronin from Bishop Manogue in Reno, and athlete (meaning his position is to be determined) Jacob Arbuckle II from Hemet, CA.
WICHITA STATE POSITIVES
Key point on the home-and-home men’s hoops series announced between Boise State and Wichita State. The Shockers will be in ExtraMile Arena November 18 and will host the Broncos in Wichita next year. This is exactly the type of scheduling Boise State needs in this day and age—against a program that’s been a mid-major standout the past 20 years. Wichita State has won 12 NCAA Tournament games in that time. Enough said. The Broncos were extremely fortunate to land the home-and-home with Clemson and get an upper-echelon ACC team to Boise last season. The Power 4 conferences just don’t take chances like that these days (and the Tigers did indeed lose the game). Resume-building matchups against quality mid-majors in the same Quad 1/Quad 2 boat are just fine.
‘RAY RAY’ TO PLAY FOR BERTO
Boise State coach Leon Rice said on Idaho SportsTalk last month: “We are done” building the 2025-26 roster. That statement comes with an asterisk, as the Broncos have added assistant coach Roberto Bergersen’s son, Rayzhon Bergersen, as a transfer from Northwest Nazarene. Not sure what kind of an impact “Ray Ray” will have, as he had only two starts at NNU last season and averaged 4.1 points and 1.2 rebounds per game. But the 6-1 guard certainly couldn’t resist playing for his dad—on the team his dad once starred for more than 25 years ago. Ray Bergerson has two years of eligibility remaining. It’s a crowded Broncos backcourt, including UCLA transfer Dylan Andrews and returnees RJ Keene and Julian Bowie—plus Andrew Meadow and Peanut Carmichael on the wing.
NNU HAS A CLEAR PATH
After a day of rest, Northwest Nazarene is set for a rematch against defending national champion Tampa tonight in the semifinals of the Division II College World Series in Cary, NC. NNU needs just one win to advance to the Final Championship Series against the winner of the other side of the bracket, while Tampa would need to beat the Nighthawks twice to advance. NNU has officially made it further than any other program in school history, becoming the first to reach the national semifinals as one of the last four teams standing in its sport. And with 46 victories, NNU is a full 10 wins ahead of the previous team record for a single baseball season. The Nighthawks’ two best pitchers, Ernesto Lugo-Canchola and Cole Calnon, got them the first two wins at the CWS. We’ll see how coach Joe Schaeffer handles the mound tonight.
TALK ABOUT STREAKY…
“Hoo boy, it’s going to be a long summer,” we thought after the Boise Hawks first homestand of the season. The Hawks lost their first five games to Idaho Falls before salvaging the series finale. Then you, blink, and the Hawks piece together a seven-game winning streak, sweeping Great Falls on the road. Boise jumped from last place to fourth in the 12-team league going into Tuesday night’s opener of a six-game series against the Ogden Raptors at Memorial Stadium. But alas, after taking a 5-1 lead, the Hawks saw it wither away in a 7-6 loss.
IDAHO TALENT: YOU NEED GOOD DIRECTIONS TO FIND ‘EM
There was an article in The Athletic Tuesday headlined: “The unlikeliest recruiting hotbed: How the state of Idaho is producing elite football talent.” I mean, it was good, as it focused on Chicago Bears first-round draft pick Colston Loveland of Gooding and took off from there. Writer Christopher Kamrani also talked about Oregon’s Gatlin Bair, the one-time Broncos commit from Burley, the Ducks’ Kenyon Sadiq, who’s from Idaho Falls, and Kelvin Obot of Fruitland, one of the top offensive line recruits in the country (coached by former Carolina Panthers All-Pro Jordan Gross). But just to reassure you that we’re still anonymous out here, Kamrani wrote that Gooding is “in southeast Idaho,” and Fruitland is “an hour northwest of Boise on the Idaho-Washington” border.” That second one has since been corrected.
This Day In Sports…brought to you by BACON BOISE…fresh breakfast and brunch every day!
June 4, 2010, 15 years ago today: Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden passes away at the age of 99. The “Wizard of Westwood” won 10 national championships in a 12-year stretch with the Bruins, the final one in 1975 putting an exclamation point on his career in his final game. Wooden coached on character and principle during the most rebellious time America has seen in its youth—on a campus that saw its share of unrest. All he did in 29 years, 27 of them at UCLA, was win 664 games, including 88 in a row during one historic stretch in the early 1970’s. Wooden died on a Friday, and the printed and televised tributes to his life lasted all weekend.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK. He also served as color commentator on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football for 14 seasons.)
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