Presented by HARMON TRAVEL.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014.
Of the New Year’s Six bowl games, the smallest point spread is the one point for Baylor in the Cotton Bowl against Michigan State. The largest is the 9½ points for Alabama in the Sugar Bowl versus Ohio State. The Fiesta Bowl is right in the middle, with Arizona favored by 4½ points over Boise State. Shouldn’t a power conference qualifier have a huge advantage over a 20th-ranked team that wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for an automatic berth granted to the Group of Five? Well, this tells you that anything can happen on New Year’s Eve in Glendale. Of course, we knew that all along, considering Nevada was the common opponent between the two schools this season. The Wildcats beat the Wolf Pack 35-28 in Tucson in September, and the Broncos won 51-46 in Reno three weeks later. It’s not a “just happy to be there” game for Boise State.
There’s going to be wild speculation about Big 12 expansion even while the conference denies it, as it weighs the need for a championship game after being shut out of the College Football Playoffs. Boise State, BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Houston and Memphis will all be mentioned. Brand name, football program strength, TV market and academics will all be considerations should the Big 12 ever go that route. Boise State has the first two items nailed, but Boise is No. 112 in TV market size, and—as a 47-year-old four-year school—its academics are still maturing. Only UCF is anywhere close to as young as Boise State (it opened its doors in 1968).
Colorado State, even as it searches for a new football coach and athletic director, is trying to make sure its name is in the Big 12 conversation. The Rams’ case, courtesy of The Coloradoan’s Matt Stephens: “CSU has wrapped up a 10-2 regular season, is on its way to the Las Vegas Bowl to try and beat its fourth straight Power 5 opponent and is set to build a state-of-the-art $220 million stadium in the heart of campus. That new facility, should the Rams not promote from within, will help them find a high-caliber coach to elevate the quality of play to compete in the Big 12.” Boise State can trump all of the above—except those three straight wins over Power 5 schools.
Boise State coach Bryan Harsin, in his first year, has been named one of eight finalists for the Eddie Robinson Award, one of the prominent national coach of the year honors. The trophy will be presented January 10 in conjunction with the College Football Playoff National Championship Game in Dallas. The field is stacked—other finalists include Art Briles (Baylor), Jimbo Fisher (Florida State), Justin Fuente (Memphis), Mark Helfrich (Oregon), Urban Meyer (Ohio State), Gary Patterson (TCU) and Nick Saban (Alabama). Former Bronco coach Chris Petersen won the Paul "Bear" Bryant Coach of the Year Award in his first season in 2006 and again in 2009. He also won the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award in 2010.
If you’re looking for local ties on the Arizona roster, there’s a painfully obvious one. Jeff Worthy was suspended, then reinstated, then dismissed from the Boise State squad during and after his freshman season, leaving for good in February, 2013. He played last year at Santa Ana College. Worthy, a 6-2, 287-pound junior, is listed as the No. 2 defensive end in the Wildcats’ 3-4 defense. He has 12 tackles this season and 4.5 tackles-for-loss, with one sack and a fumble recovery. In a Fox Sports Arizona story during fall camp, Worthy talked about his bad ending with the Broncos. "I thought I was the best player out there. And I was just an idiot. Plain and simple. Just doing the wrong thing,” he told Andy Gimino. "If I hadn't gone to Boise, I probably would still be doing the same things I was doing. I wouldn't have grown up. I'm not a boy anymore. I'm a man."
As if fending off Arizona linebacker Scooby Wright wasn’t going to be a tall enough task for Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl, last night the star sophomore won the Bronko Nagurski Award that goes to the nation's top defensive player. Wright had a two-star grade from the recruiting websites coming out of high school—he says the Wildcats were the only FBS team to offer him a scholarship. The 6-1, 246-pounder has taken it out on the Pac-12, making 89 tackles this season, a staggering 27 of them for loss with 14 sacks.
The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl held its coaches’ teleconference yesterday, and Air Force’s Troy Calhoun and Western Michigan’s P.J. Fleck promise they’re fired up about the December 20 date on the blue turf between two of the nation’s comeback programs of the year. Calhoun said quarterback Kael Pearson, a key part of the Falcons’ upset of Boise State in September, is still dealing with a high-ankle sprain but is going to play if at all possible. Fleck said WMU’s Broncos went right to work on the Air Force offense as soon as they found out it was facing the Academy Sunday. Fleck has some familiarity with the option philosophy, having played Army and Navy while he was on the staff at Rutgers in 2010-11.
The Fiesta Bowl announcement was some consolation to some prominent former Broncos in the NFL, because there were lots of long faces after Sunday losses. Notably, George Iloka made six tackles in Cincinnati’s 42-21 loss to Pittsburgh. Kyle Wilson, whose small role continues with the Jets, logged one tackle a 30-24 loss to Minnesota. Billy Winn had two stops and a hit on Andrew Luck in Cleveland’s 25-24 loss to Indianapolis. And Tampa Bay had just 14 rushing attempts in its 34-17 loss at Detroit—Doug Martin had five of them for 22 yards.
What the Boise State basketball team needs from Derrick Marks is consistency. If his game continues to look the way it did against Saint Mary’s Saturday night that would be just fine, thank you. Marks has been named Mountain West Player of the Week after perhaps the most complete game of his career in the 82-71 victory over the Gaels: 22 points on 10-for-14 shooting with a pair of three-pointers, a season-high seven rebounds, four assists and four steals and no turnovers in 34 minutes of floor time.
It’s looking like coach Leon Rice is beginning to find some answers inside to complement Nick Duncan, who has probably played a lot more post than Rice would like. James Webb III came off the bench to impress again at Saint Mary’s, scoring 10 points and grabbing seven rebounds in 27 minutes, while Kevin Allen added nine points in 12 minutes. Webb has 22 points in the last two games—accounting for every point he has scored this season. Webb and the Broncos host Adams State tonight in Taco Bell Arena. Lest you think this is a cakewalk, the Colorado school lost by only 12 points at New Mexico, five at Nevada and nine at Colorado State in the past month. And remember that Adams State stunned defending Big Sky champion Boise State in what was then the BSU Pavilion, 75-68, just before Christmas in 1993.
The transaction wire this season isn’t exclusively a yo-yo between the Idaho Steelheads and the AHL’s Texas Stars. Coach Brad Ralph has tweaked his roster again, acquiring defenseman Michal Spacek from the Stockton Thunder in exchange for future considerations. Spacek, a native of the Czech Republic, has appeared in 35 ECHL games for Stockton. He scored his first professional goal against the Steelheads last January in CenturyLink Arena. Spacek is expected to be in uniform when the Steelies host the rival Alaska Aces this Friday and Saturday.
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December 9, 1961: In one of college football’s forgotten bowl games, Baylor upsets No. 10 Utah State 24-9 in the first Gotham Bowl in New York. The Aggies were led by future Hall of Famer Merlin Olsen, but he couldn’t draw a crowd all by himself—only about 15,000 fans showed up at the iconic Polo Grounds. The second and final Gotham Bowl was played a year later in Yankee Stadium. Utah State wouldn’t make another postseason game until the 1993 Las Vegas Bowl. Since then, the Aggies have played three bowls in Boise, the inaugural Humanitarian Bowl in 1997 and the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in 2011 and 2012.
(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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