BSU’s NCAA Violations Report to Come Out Tuesday
Boise State will find out their NCAA fate Tuesday at 1pm, according to an attorney for two former coaches implicated in the violations.
Boise attorney David Leroy told Today’s 6 News and Fox 9 Now today that an unofficial Indianapolis source informed him the report will come out tommorow. The Broncos’ athletic program is facing a variety of violations including a lack of institutional control charge.
Boise State went before the NCAA Committee on Infractions June 10, and have been waiting for an answer since that day.
Follow both Today’s 6 News and Fox 9 Now through the week for all the latest.
Boise State cornerback Jerrell Gavins finding his place in Boise
Quiet intensity and unwavering self-confidence earned Jerrell Gavins the chance to play big-time college football.
An open mind is allowing him to enjoy it.
Gavins, a senior cornerback who is in his first season as a full-time starter for Boise State, was disoriented when he arrived here two years ago.
He grew up in Miami and spent a year at El Camino College near Los Angeles.
“When I first got here, I hated Boise,’’ he said. “Worst place ever.’’
Now he’s almost a local. His roommate, junior cornerback Josh Borgman of Centennial High, has introduced him to a wide range of Idaho activities. They go bridge jumping in Horseshoe Bend. They’ve skateboarded down from Table Rock. They’ve gone hunting.
“I’m coming from San Diego and I still haven’t opened up,” junior cornerback Jamar Taylor said. “He opened up and he’s happy, and that’s a good thing.”
Nothing illustrates the culture shock that Gavins experienced more than this: When he found out some of his teammates owned shotguns, he was scared.
“Seriously,” he said. “… Where I come from, shooting a gun is shooting a person.”
And where he came from is never far from Gavins’ mind.
His mother, now married, was a single parent when she raised him. He has four younger siblings for whom he is a father figure. He talks to his mom and siblings about four times a day, using a webcam and Skype.
When his siblings need help with math homework, they call him.
He also has advice for his three younger sisters, two of whom are teenagers.
“He says, ‘No boys. Get your school done,’” said Carolyn Warren, Gavins’ mom. “The daddy instinct is popping up.”
Gavins always has helped his mom with the children. He’d pick them up from day care after football practice, and Warren remembers times when she needed to take one of the kids to the doctor in the middle of the night and Gavins assumed responsibility for the rest.
Those experiences helped form Gavins’ personality. He’s a serious, driven person.
“I feel like it made me a lot stronger,” he said. “… I was a little too serious back then about responsibilities. I used to boss my mom around.”
Gavins also developed a passion for football. He started playing at age 6 and played on some exceptional youth teams, including an all-star group that traveled to Cancun, Mexico.
But his career hit a hiccup in high school. He didn’t play his first two years because of academics.
“I definitely had to get my act together,” he said.
He did — and played two years of varsity at South Miami High, making honorable mention all-conference twice.
He says he won battles against some of the top receivers in South Florida, but recruiters didn’t notice. He was undersized — he’s 5-foot-9, 167 pounds now — and his school wasn’t one of the area’s top football programs.
A local man who scouts players for California junior colleges connected him with El Camino.
“That was a big step for me,” Gavins said. “I was ready to just start my life.”
He spent one academic year at El Camino. Because he qualified for NCAA sports out of high school, he was eligible to leave early.
Boise State defensive backs coach Marcel Yates showed up at practice one day and watched him compete with some tall wide receivers who were bound for Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference teams.
He told coach Chris Petersen that Gavins reminded him of NFL first-round pick Kyle Wilson and they decided to offer a scholarship.
Gavins, who was living in a one-bedroom apartment with seven other guys, couldn’t accept fast enough.
“It couldn’t be worse than L.A.,” he figured.
First impressions aside, he was right.
And he fit in with the Broncos on the football field immediately.
The Broncos planned to redshirt him, but when Taylor got injured they used Gavins and redshirted Taylor in 2009. Gavins started the 2010 Fiesta Bowl against TCU in a special defense with six defensive backs.
“He was hungry,” Taylor said. “He came and made a statement real quick.”
Gavins challenged Brandyn Thompson for the starting job last year and played some. But it was clear his breakthrough opportunity would be in 2011.
He seems poised to take full advantage.
In the opener against Georgia, Gavins set up a touchdown with an interception and perfectly defended two other deep balls fired in his direction.
He has looked good in practice since that game, too.
“He’s always shown flashes,” Petersen said. “You could see he’s athletic and pretty explosive. When you see it in the game and come to practice and there it is again, that’s when you start to feel good about it. … His technique has been spectacular this fall and the first game.”
Gavins carried some extra motivation for the Georgia game. His mom watched him play a college football game in person for the first time.
Usually, about 50 friends and family members gather in Miami to watch him on TV. Warren hopes to make her first trip to Boise for the Nevada game Oct. 1.
“He was so proud for (his mom) to be at a game and shoot, he played like it,” Yates said. “We need her to come to all the games if he’s going to play like that.”
Gavins, though, doesn’t consider that performance extraordinary.
In his mind, he showed everyone else what he knew he could do — and took another step toward his goals.
He wants to play in the NFL. He wants to earn his communications degree next year. And he wants to become a firefighter.
“He knows where he wants to go in life,” Taylor said, “and he’s not going to let anything stop him.”
Not opposing receivers. Not stereotypes about his size. Not all those doubters who overlooked him out of high school.
He plays with an edge that Yates calls “playing bigger than he is.”
“Aggression comes out when I’m on the field,” Gavins said, “and I’m always confident knowing that no one is better than me. I really feel like no one is better than me. I don’t care how fast you are. If you make a play, I’m going to come right back and hit you in your mouth.”
Gavins has used that same fearless attitude to conquer his new surroundings.
His mom sees the pictures on Facebook and wonders if he’s lost his mind.
His coach hears the stories and smiles.
“Whether it’s a guy from Florida hanging out with a guy from Idaho or vice versa,” Petersen said, “that, to me, is what college life should be all about.”
Gavins says he won’t settle in Boise — he’s headed back to Florida eventually — but he appreciates the experiences he’s gained here.
“This just expanded my mind coming out in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “Even if I don’t get to go pro, I’m glad God put me in this place.”
Haters are going to hate and here be one big hater!
Martin Manley
I’m sure there are a lot of nice, reasonable, intelligent people in Boise, but if the number of emails I receivedafter Round I along with the tone is any indication, they’ve got problems. One thing you can always count on when “attacking” a specific college is that the zealots will come out in force. Forget reason or logic. “You dissed my school. How dare ye!” And, those ever-insightful one liner attacks are sure to follow. But… I don’t care. It’s a tree falling in the forest to me.
In this Round II, I’m going to talk about recruiting. There may be a Round III because, as I eluded to previously in a reply, the issue is not about who a team beat, but rather who they lostto!
Boise claims eight BCS scalps over the last six years. Ok, fine. As I pointed out, Kansas (whose FB team is bad) has beaten 24 BCS teams in the same amount of time. Big deal. I guess KU has three times the claim to legitimately challenge for the national championship.
No, the issue is not who anyone has beaten, but rather who they have lost to – especially when a single loss usually eliminates a team from a national title. But, that’s Round III if I decide to do it.
——————–
SURELY, any reasonable person would concede that if two teams are given the same quality of players that (on average and over time) they would have similar results on the field. And, even if there are outliers – as there always are, that if you have a large enough sample, you can actually predict what kind of success teams will have… SURELY.
But, of course, I’m dealing with zealots and SURLEY just left town with a drunken sailor.
Suppose two teams averaged recruiting the following.
|
Team |
5-Star |
4-Star |
3-Star |
2-Star |
1-Star |
|
Team A |
3 |
11 |
4 |
1 |
N/A |
|
Team B |
0 |
0 |
5 |
15 |
N/A |
–
This is a rhetorical quiz.
1) Which team would be better over say, a decade?
2) Which team would you bet your life on would be better over say, a decade?
Answer: Duh!
Here are the two teams again, with a decimal place added.
|
Team |
5-Star |
4-Star |
3-Star |
2-Star |
1-Star |
|
Team A |
3.3 |
11.3 |
4.1 |
0.7 |
N/A |
|
Team B |
0.0 |
0.2 |
5.2 |
14.5 |
N/A |
–
Assuming one point for each star, Team A averages 3.85 stars per player. Team B averages 2.32 stars per player.
How much difference is there between 3.85 and 2.32? Ok, the difference is 1.53 stars. But, how much does it matter if every single player on Team A is 1.53 stars better than Team B?
Is it the difference between being the #1 team in the country vs. say, the #68 team?
I’m going to attempt (in as simple terms as possible for our Boise friends) to make a connection – a correlation, if you will – between the average number of player stars (PS) and the average quality of a team.
Needless to say, recruiting doesn’t benefit a team for a few years, but that comes out in the wash. Besides, I’m looking at the years 2002-2011, which is a pretty good sample.
I went to Rivals and looked at every season from 2002 (that’s as far back as they go) to 2011. I took the average number of stars for each team in every major conference along with Boise, Notre Dame, BYU and TCU. That’s a total of 70 football teams. I then got the average stars for the entire period per team and ranked them. USC is Team A (above). Their average player stars is 3.85. The last team on the list (Connecticut, #70) has a PS for the ten years of 2.26. So, that’s your range.
The point I’m going to make is that a team’s success or failure is pretty directly correlated to the team’s average PS. Could there be an exception to this? Of course – either a team that has tons of talent, but wasn’t that great or a team that has little talent that was pretty good. But, these situations are rare and they come and they go – like Kansas in 2007 (12-1, winner of Orange Bowl) or Texas in 2010 (5-7, no bowl). In any given single year, anything is possible, but over the course of a decade – extremely unlikely.
Before I go any farther, let me just say that Team B (above) is Boise. And, just for the record, here are the ten seasons’ PS.
|
2002 |
03 |
04 |
05 |
06 |
07 |
08 |
09 |
10 |
11 |
|
2.00 |
2.10 |
2.07 |
2.44 |
2.17 |
2.24 |
2.26 |
2.52 |
2.80 |
2.58 |
–
As you can see, there is general improvement, but I’m looking at the entire decade as a whole – even when Boise was undefeated with a far worse PS average.
As I say, I went through all 10 years for all 70 schools and ranked them by their average PS over the course of the decade. In doing this work, I realized there will be other issues that I will deal with as a result of it in future posts. But, the focus right now is on Boise State.
Therefore, I will discuss the top-10 and the bottom 10 of the 70 schools. Shown are the average player stars per team for the decade.
|
RK |
Team |
APS |
|
RK |
Team |
APS |
|
1 |
USC |
3.85 |
61 |
Kentucky |
2.50 |
|
|
2 |
Texas |
3.72 |
62 |
Baylor |
2.46 |
|
|
3 |
Florida |
3.68 |
63 |
Syracuse |
2.43 |
|
|
4 |
LSU |
3.61 |
64 |
Wake Forest |
2.43 |
|
|
5 |
Oklahoma |
3.61 |
65 |
Duke |
2.38 |
|
|
6 |
Florida St. |
3.59 |
66 |
Vanderbilt |
2.37 |
|
|
7 |
Georgia |
3.58 |
67 |
Cincinnati |
2.35 |
|
|
8 |
Ohio State |
3.55 |
68 |
Boise State |
2.32 |
|
|
9 |
Michigan |
3.52 |
69 |
Indiana |
2.31 |
|
|
10 |
Tennessee |
3.44 |
70 |
Connecticut |
2.26 |
–
I shouldn’t need to make the argument that the top-10 teams are vastly superior to the bottom-10 teams, but just in case…
The average conference winning percentage for the top-10 is .720. The four SEC teams’ average conference win% is .670, which drives down the average. What does that tell you? It tells you that even the teams with the best recruits only win two thirds of the time in the SEC. On the other hand, Boise wins 97.2% of the time in their conference. You heard correctly. The school is 70-2 in the conference since 2002.
In the bottom 10 (less Boise), those teams generally get massacred in their conferences. The three Big East teams actually win 43.4% of the time. But, that’s easily explainable by virtue of the fact that the BEast stinks. Who doesn’t know that?
Nevertheless, even in the pathetically easy BEast, these three teams that recruit at an average of 2.35 PS (Boise is 2.32) still only win at a four win, five loss rate. The other six teams (Kentucky, Baylor, Wake Forest, Duke, Vanderbilt and Indiana) have a combined average winning percentage of 23%! Again, Boise wins at a 97% rate.
————————–
So, how can Boise be able to be as good as the big boys despite the fact that none of the other bottom feeders are even remotely good?
They can’t… obviously.
We’re supposed to believe that this ONE school out of all the schools who just happens to play in a pud conference is far superior to the level of their recruits. Or, that this ONE school in the middle of nowhere can find every diamond in the rough that all the most experienced recruiters can’t find. Or, perhaps only diamonds in the rough would seek out a school such as Boise. Why that would be…? Don’t ask me. This is someone else’s dream.
Or, maybe we are supposed to believe that once they get to Boise, they get far superior coaching and training that other schools haven’t ever thought about or employed. Maybe somehow the blue turf sends waves of energy through their special shoes so that they become superior players. Maybe it’s breathing the smog-free air of Idaho.
I guess it’s just a mystery – like the Loch Ness monster or Big Foot. And, just about as credible.
I (Martin Manley) can tell you what is going on. Boise plays NOBODY except every blue moon. A few fortunate wins when they have all the time in the world to plan for it because they don’t have to worry about next week… have gone a long way.
And because their 2.32 PS team gets to play a schedule that Baylor, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, etc. would die for, their glossy record gets noticed. After all, we are obsessed with being undefeated since that’s about the only way to get to the BcSchampionship. Being a David in Goliath’s world, they get recognition, special treatment and every benefit of the doubt.
——————-
#1 Oklahoma plays #5 Florida State this weekend. #2 Alabama plays #3 LSU on November 5. Two of those four teams are going to lose no matter what. As to the two winners… they will play several more ranked teams no matter what.
Boise? Their schedule at this moment consists of #23 TCU (beaten by Baylor) and no other teams in the top-38 based upon votes received in the AP poll. Other than TCU, the highest ranked team left for Boise (as per Sagarin) is #50 (Tulsa).
No doubt some Boise Nation zealot will protest that games are played on the field and not based upon some HS recruiting analysis.
Yeah, well… what can I say to something that profound?
I’ll have to take some time in the near future to address this one personally.
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