BITS OF BUSINESS FROM ORANGE JACKET GUY

Greetings, Bronco Nation, from the Office of Orange Jacket Guy; it is again a distinct honor to write to you. Now that the NFL draft is over I have a few bits to put out there. Mostly it’s just ranting.

The first bit of business is an extreme disappointment in the NFL draft process illustrated by just one point: How the hell did ANYONE from Nevada get picked up BEFORE Kellen Moore? If they had put in the work and had the (relative) skill, the last game we had with them would have gone vastly different. Although considering how they and their fans had acted the previous year, if I were them, I wouldn’t have shown up either. Bringing it back, the NFL draft seems to be less on the quality of player and the ability to play but more on a good-ol’-boys system. While yes, this was the record year for the number of players from BSU being drafted, that says NOTHING on how it actually got done.

The next bit of business: I can’t believe (well, maybe I can now) how vicious Vandal fans are getting now. Just in the last 2 weeks I’ve had more-than-normal experiences with Vandals (and just so we’re clear, such things are rarely positive, as most of you already know). Listing all of them might bore you out of even the most extreme cases of insomnia, and will most likely ignite the ire of others on The Blue Turf. However a few stand out that need addressing. The first is an interaction between myself and a guy (who I will NOT name directly, out of remaining respect I have for him) who is running for local office. On Facebook, the popular medium for many people to interact and make themselves look stupid, this guy comes in and attempts to break-up the popular Facebook version of the Boise State chant with the word “IDAHO”. The stated reason for this was “I simply wanted to make sure you knew where you were”. It’s not like I was in his face or anything. He continued for a while like this and got a little nastier each time (I deleted most of these posts). He then escalated matters by going into my photos and other items and started posting there. Now because I am a bit more witty than their usual “Boise is not a state” garbage, I handled him quite readily. I think he went to sleep or something because there wasn’t much more after I stated that you really shouldn’t put a football field in an airplane hangar. Whatevs.

The next interaction that’s worth mentioning was on an image-sharing board that I frequent. I will not name it specifically because it has rules; the first two of which are against naming it directly. I posted an image of the popular Boise skyline and encouraged others to do the same for their cities. Apparently some Vandal idiot recognized it and proceeded to reply with the most virulent and nasty replies (Unique poster id fWd4d18q), while common in both Vandal culture and image boards, was completely uncalled-for. The things that poster said about our cheerleaders alone would get your blood boiling. I caught a bit of luck with the poster, however. He was posting so fast (I think he was copy/pasting a bit too much with some of it) that the site banned him for spam (just so that this is put in proper prospective, it is EXTREMELY HARD to trigger the spam protection BY HAND; usually a computer does it out of Malaysia or something).

The last one I’ll mention happened while I was walking down Rose Hill. I was wearing the colors as I do most of the time when I’m out & about. A peeling black and dingy-yellow vehicle slowed to just about my pace, a couple of its occupants accosted me for being a BSU fan, one of them threw at me a Burger King cup (which burst on impact), and then the vehicle sped off on its way. Luckily the cup was just water (I only guess this from the lack of smell).

The point of bringing all these up is that since it’s the middle of the off-season now, the Vandals seem to be getting more brazen in their attacks. Heads up, Bronco Nation.

I did hear an anti-BSU joke through the course of the recent spike that’s worth repeating: “Q: How many BSU fans does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: 20. 1 to put in the lightbulb, 19 to reminisce about the Fiesta Bowl.” The lesson I got from that one: don’t be jerks about being Bronco fans. Sportsmanship starts with us.

I believe that concludes our business today. If any of you want to argue with me on ANY of this, please, by all means, GO FOR IT. I’ve said it a few times before: BE PROUD.

Until next time, Bronco Nation: In Pete We Trust