Presented by BACON BOISE.
This Day In Sports…December 11, 2010, 15 years ago today:
Boise State’s Kellen Moore finishes fourth in Heisman Trophy voting at ceremonies in New York, the highest honor yet for the school’s most decorated player. Moore joined Auburn’s Cam Newton, the runaway Heisman winner, Stanford’s Andrew Luck, and Oregon’s LaMichael James on ESPN’s nationally-televised show. Moore was the Broncos’ first-ever Heisman Trophy finalist. (I don’t have to tell you the second one was—the guy who should have won the trophy last year with the second-best rushing season in college football history.)
There were lots of publicity-that-money-can’t-buy moments for Boise State football in 2010. There was the win over No. 7 Virginia Tech in Washington D.C. on Labor Day on ESPN. College GameDay was on the blue turf in September, followed by a win over No. 24 Oregon State that night on ABC. Moore’s inclusion at the Heisman ceremonies was right up there with the best of ‘em, and he couldn’t have presented himself much better in front of a national audience.
It was more validation of what the Broncos program had built over a 12-year run that had, to that point, produced a 133-21 record. ESPN’s angle for Kellen’s Heisman profile, having him diagramming plays on a clear glass screen, was on the money. Moore’s best line as he scribbled his Xs and Os: “We call this a ‘yes/no’ route. If Titus (Young) is in one-on-one coverage, it’s ‘yes.’”
Moore quarterbacked what many still believe to be the best team in school history to a 12-1 record after a 26-3 victory over Utah in the Las Vegas Bowl a week after the Heisman ceremony. The unassuming kid from Prosser completed 71 percent of his passes for 3,845 yards and 35 touchdowns against just six interceptions on the season. The 2010 Broncos weren’t undefeated like the 2009 and 2006 teams that came before them, but they were more dominant (and they get a mulligan for the stunning loss at Nevada the day after Thanksgiving).
But if that Nevada game had finished differently, you wonder where Moore would have finished in the Heisman voting. His 53-yard throw to Young with two seconds left at Mackay Stadium would have been one of the plays of the year in college football, because it would have kept Boise State in the top three in the country (at least) and would have landed them in the Rose Bowl against Wisconsin. Man that team was good.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
