Broncos ready to face their new conference
The Broncos are currently in a three team tie for third in Mountain West action at 0-0. Texas Christian and current week opponent Colorado State are both undefeated in conference play.
While most expect Boise to slice through their Mountain West competition like warm butter, we’ve all seen what can happen when we look past an opponent (lesson learned, thank you Colin Kaepernick).
The Rams of Colorado State University (3-2, 1-0) are coming off a heartbreaking loss at home last week to San Jose State University (38-31). They will have their hands full facing a Boise offense which put up 57 points on Fresno State last week. Colorado State is giving up an average of 24.8 points per game and has struggled against mid-level teams such as University of Colorado-Boulder, Utah State University and San Jose.
The Rams’ offense has struggled at times and will need major contributions from their specialty players to try and gain any ground against the Broncos’ shut-down defense. Expect to see a lot of man coverage on the outside from Boise as they attempt to blitz sophomore quarterback Pete Thomas and force him into making bad calls. Thomas has an accurate arm, completing 67.1 percent of his passes, but tends to put the ball up for grabs at times.
Boise’s secondary will need to focus on junior wide receiver Lou Greenwood and sophomore tight end Crockett Gillmore. The pair have combined for five of Thomas’ six touchdowns this season.
The Rams have been able to hold teams on defense, but have not seen completion like Boise State this season. Kellen Moore was able to move past a bad outing against Nevada with a three touchdown performance last week and should be able to continue that success against Colorado State.
The game will begin at 4 p.m. local time and will be shown on The Mtn. Network. Colorado State is planning a white-out for their game, which might give Boise State a chance to rock the all-blue’s against Mountain West competition.
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Boise State fans get a glimpse of why Matt Miller was a Montana star
Two years later, they still haven’t replaced Matt Miller at Capital High in Helena, Mont.
His talent — big, strong, fast, nimble, savvy — made him a three-sport star and three-time state champion in football.
His personality — humble, considerate, determined — made him an icon in the Treasure State.
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“I just love his demeanor out there,” coach Chris Petersen said. “He just goes about his business. I don’t even know he’s out there till the ball goes to him and he seems to do something good.
“He’s just been so reliable, which is something special for a young guy.”
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Petersen told reporters after the Georgia game that while quarterback Kellen Moore shows little emotion, Miller takes nonchalance “to a new low.”
“We’re kind of a quiet family,” Miller said. “We’re not about the hooting and hollering. You’d probably get stared at weird doing that up in Montana. It’s kind of the norm just being an easy-going guy.”
read more of Chadd Cripe on Matt Miller here
In the interveiws I’ve seen him do I have to agree with coach the kid is so low key it’s frightening, as his play must be to the teams we face. I look forward to watching this young man develope!
Playing great football not enough to find Boise State a decent home
By DAVID JONES, The Patriot-News
While the Big East scrambles to unify and maybe then remain viable, one of the peripheral schools in its reported plan – sort of an either/or contingency that current member schools can’t seem to agree upon – is Boise State.
It’s come to this for one of the most successful football programs in the nation during the last decade: The major conferences in their neighborhood, one of which has already expanded (the Pac-12) and the other which needs to (the Big 12), are not interested. And the most desperate major conference of the six in college football (the Big East) is undecided about them.
The Broncos have finished in the top 10 of the BCS rankings five times in the last seven seasons. Since the middle of the 2008 season, they have spent all but one week in the top 10. They are led by the best combination of creative mind, CEO organizer and basic blocking/tackling teacher in the college game – Chris Petersen.
And yet, during a period of volatile movement, no major conference really seems to want them. How can this be?
You’ve probably heard that all the conference shuffling has everything to do with football and nothing to do with men’s basketball or other sports. That’s because football drives revenue way more than any other college sport, even at so-called “basketball schools” such as North Carolina, Indiana, Connecticut and Arizona.
Well, in turn, the major reasons Boise can’t find a major-league home have nothing to do with football. They have to do with television money and status:
* Boise State plays in a small market that can’t deliver either big cable television revenue or a long-established brand.
* It’s a very young school. So, its core fan following doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of living alumni commonly attracted to other football programs.
* And academically, Boise is growing but has an unestablished academic profile lacking a legacy of prestige that might attract school presidents from other conferences.
Most important is the TV market. Now you might say, Hey, I heard that Virginia Tech-Boise State game last year in Washington D.C. got great TV ratings. Did a 25.0 rating in Birmingham, of all places! And I heard the Boise at Toledo game a couple of weeks ago was the best-rated game in Mid-American Conference history.
All true. But those are cherry-picked factoids that have no bearing on the attraction of Boise State as a consistent revenue producer. To be an attractive conference expansion target you must deliver one of two things – a major television market attached to a big cable company; or a massive and faithful nationwide alumni base that buys merchandise and watches every game.
For instance, Nebraska was not attractive to the Big Ten for the former reason. The biggest single market around Lincoln is Omaha – considerably smaller than Harrisburg in market rank. The Big Ten couldn’t hope to add any giant chunk of cable rights fees from that. None of the other markets in Cornhusker country amount to anything either when taken individually.
Ah, but when you add up all the longtime Nebraska fans spread across a 10-state area of the Great Plains and Eastern Rockies – now you have something. All those fans watch each and every game, travel to away games and bowls and buy all sorts of licensed merchandise. You can’t get their money in big chunks but you can collect it piecemeal.
The other extremes are Connecticut and Rutgers. Neither has a football heritage. Their alumni bases aren’t close to Nebraska’s as far as fan fervor.
So, they’re trying to pitch themselves to the ACC or Big Ten on spec. Their carrot is inclusion in the huge I-95 corridor, it’s media market and prospective cable TV rights fees. What might be possible if they were part of a big-time football conference. So far, that hasn’t panned out for either but they can at least hope.
Boise State has neither selling point.
The city is off by itself with no other major metro around for hundreds of miles. The area’s cable distributor is Cable ONE, a western regional outfit dwarfed by Midwest giant Time-Warner and national behemoth Comcast.
Further, the school’s brand has only recently become recognizable. The university only became a 4-year college in 1965 and its living alumni base (76,000) is relatively miniscule.
And its academic profile is only now taking shape as an engineering and high-tech research school. It’s tough to sell haughty presidents on a place that’s been looked down upon by the rival University of Idaho as “the trucking school down south.” Until a few years ago, Boise State included a large vocational wing called the Larry Selland College that included a program for truck driving. It’s now a separate entity called the College of Western Idaho.
No, the one attraction Boise State can sell is its fabulous football team, one that’s taken on all comers and performed like champions. If you watched the Broncos’ rout of Georgia in Atlanta last month, you saw a well-oiled machine grind up and spit out a pretty decent SEC team full of superior athletes on its home turf.
What Boise State hopes to sell to the Big East is its record on the field. When the BCS uses its recently agreed upon formula to decide whether to renew the Big East as an automatic qualifier conference starting with the 2014 season, it will need some evidence that its schools are competitive on a national scale. Boise would give the Big East such a program.
Too bad the Big East is very apparently in complete dysfunction. The basketball schools and football schools have separate agendas. A back-room battle looks imminent to settle acrimony between Villanova and prospective new football-only member Temple. The football schools can’t even agree on a plan because more than half of them – Louisville, UConn, West Virginia and Rutgers – are clearly looking to jump ship if anyone will take them.
If the chaotic mass of suits from what remains of the conference can’t agree on Boise State as a football-only option, the Broncos may very well be doomed to second-tier status.
Then, what about Petersen? Could anyone blame him if he put his talents on the market? And when and if that time arrives, which major-conference schools might be in the market for a terrific coach?
Let Mr. Jones know where he is wrong here.
Boise State nickels roll with less roles
With the depth he has at some positions, the Canadian Football League’s 12 men on the field at a time must seem ideal to Boise State coach Chris Petersen.
Alas, the Broncos have one less position, and that can create some interesting maneuvering. No. 5 Boise State’s depth and versatility on the defensive line has led to a bit of a shift in how the defense is run.
Nickels have started two of the five games thus far, as the Broncos have opted to start three defensive ends in a pair of games.
“It’s tough not being able to be out there the whole game and get as many plays, but if you look at our defense as a whole and the production, the coaches are going to put the best players out there,” senior nickel Hunter White said. “At first, it was really frustrating … for us to be stubborn and say ‘that’s not fair’ would be a lie. As much as we want to play, coaches are going to do what’s best for the team. When we get our chance, we’ve got to go make plays.”
Senior defensive end Shea McClellin’s athleticism allows the Broncos to stand him up and gives fellow senior Jarrell Root a shot at more time. McClellin can be the fifth pass rusher or drop back in coverage.
A slightly diminished role has meant less of a noticeable impact from the team’s nickels — White, sophomore Jonathan Brown and junior Dextrell Simmons have a combined 19 tackles. Winston Venable had 21 in his first five games last season and White had 18.
“I think we want to get certain people on the field against certain personnel, certain styles of offense, and that’s what you’re seeing,” Petersen said. “You get a guy like Shea that is so versatile, it doesn’t matter really where you put him, he’s going to be one of the better players on the field.”
Read more from Dave Southorn here.
I don’t knowhow many of you watch the Lions Monday Night game, but it was clear to this viewer they were using some of the medthods descirbed above, With Suh jumping around fron line to LB like we have Shea and Billy doing clearly coaches in all of football are taking notice to Coach Pete’s defensive schemes.
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