Category: Sports

So, today is football National Letter of Intent Day. In layman’s terms, it’s the day when all those high school seniors can officially sign with the college team of their choice. It’s the culmination of the long and arduous recruiting process.

Obviously, since college football is such an obsession with many fans, yours truly included, a great amount of attention is paid to recruiting. Stands to reason that if you don’t get the best players possible, your team won’t be as good as it can be in the coming years… or something like that. Fans buy magazines devoted to recruiting. They pay for websites that track potential recruits and learn what other schools players are considering. At this point, recruiting information is big business, and is just getting bigger.

All sorts of media outlets have their own rankings of high school players. Every player is given a star rank, from 1 to 5 stars. The 5 star kids are the biggies. The golden boys. What everyone is chasing. ESPN has their “Top 150” list of the top 150 players in the country, and lists what schools they’ve committed to. Sportingnews.com, CBSSports.com, Rivals.com and Scout.com and many others all devote huge amounts of coverage to college recruiting. If you google “college football recruiting” you’ll get 18,700,000 hits. Arguably there is maybe more interest in college recruiting than there is in hockey at this point. Every one of these outlets will ultimately give each school a rank from 1-119 as to how well they did with this year’s recruiting class. The fans of the school with the number 1 recruiting class will get all giddy and dream of the 3 national championships that class is certainly going to win in the coming years. Fans of the teams that don’t get a high ranked class will worry about the direction of their program and why their coaching staff couldn’t recruit better. Coaches have literally lost jobs over perceived poor recruiting rankings.

And you know what? It’s all bullshit.

Oh sure, your team has to have good players in order to win. Nobody is disputing that. But if you actually believe that any 1 media outlet has the means to accurately scout, evaluate and rank every high school football player out there, you’re deluded. For the record, I am no insider. I have never been through the process. I’m just a fan, and this is what I observe. Allow me to provide you with some statistics.

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, in 2010/11 some form of organized football (from 6-man through traditional 11-man) was played at 15,513 high schools in the US. At those schools, 1,134,347 boys played football. If we divide that number by 3 to get only the seniors (that number is an estimate, since not all schools/players play 4 years of football, but this is just rough calculations anyway), we get 378,115 recruitable athletes, if we assume that a kid who has the body and ability to play college football could come from any of those schools, which doesn’t sound like that much of a stretch. Further, if we say that maybe 10% of those players could even be considered skilled and/or big and fast enough to play at the highest levels of college football, that still leaves us with almost thirty-eight THOUSAND possible athletes.

Don’t you suppose that the resources required to accurately rate every one of those kids is WELL beyond what anyone is currently capable of? Oh sure, they could easily scout the biggest football-factory type high schools out there. Which is generally what they do. But I’m going to guess that some very good players could EASILY slip through the recruiting media’s nets. Just for reference, Kellen Moore was 2 or 3 star recruit coming out of high school.

Ok. Say that doesn’t convince you. That’s fine. Even if you believe that it is possible for the recruiting media to see every single possible athlete out there, what about their actual evaluations? You know, those handy dandy star ratings stuck on every player to which everyone pays so much attention. Think they’re always 100% accurate?

Sure, they can measure how big and tall someone is. They can measure how much they can bench press. They can measure how fast they run 40 yards. They can even watch film from the games they’ve played. That may give them an idea. But these boys are 18 years old. They haven’t even become what they’re going to become yet. I would argue that a LOT more goes into making a successful football player than just “measurables”.  What about work ethic? A kid will have to juggle football, workouts and classes all at the same time. What about maturity? That kid may well be away from home for the first time in his life. What about desire to get better? Drive? Coachability? How do they measure those? What about smarts? Sure they could look at his GPA, but how well a kid does on his history exam doesn’t exactly reflect how well he can read a defense.

If you need any more evidence into just how much of an inexact science football evaluation is, just look at the NFL. Yeah, they do quite a little bit of evaluating of players leading into the draft. They have a MUCH smaller group of players to look at. Players who are older, more mature. More tape to watch of players against top talent. There is the combine where the top players gather in one place and show EXACTLY what they can do. There are hours of interviews. More tape. Teams literally have millions of dollars riding on every evaluation. You know what? Even THEY wiff on players. It happens every single year. Jamarcus Russell anyone? If an NFL team can’t even properly evaluate the #1 pick in the draft, I totally believe that Rivals.com can totally accurately rate a 17 year old pimple-faced kid from Paducah, Kentucky. Sure.

The thing is, every one of these recruiting services has absolutely zero incentive to be accurate. Follow me here. They have incentive to make money. Sell subscriptions. Drive ad traffic. That’s it. If you look at the rankings every year, you’ll always see the same bunch of teams at the top. They are the Texases, the Ohio States, the Alabamas. You know, those teams that have huge, rabid followings. Sure, they all get good players, but if you want to attract that traffic to your publication how do you do that? It’s not by giving them rankings in the 30’s or 40’s that’s for sure. Why is it that Notre Dame has had a top 25 recruiting class every year but hasn’t been relevant in college football since the early ’90s? Couldn’t be that their player rankings could have been skewed, huh?

Where is the incentive for them to be accurate? There is none. Nobody is going to go back to Scout.com in 4 years and say “well, you gave Michigan a top #3 recruiting class but that team finished 6-6 three years in a row. You’re fired”. In the NFL front offices get fired for poor decisions. Yet everyone just gives these recruiting services a pass. You see articles like this from a very respected college football writer wondering why Boise State doesn’t recruit better. He looks at a number of supposed reasons except the one that is shouting from the back of my head… THE RANKING SYSTEM IS COMPLETE BULLSHIT.  I’m going to go ahead and trust Coach Petersen to get the kids he wants to get. He’s got actual skin in the game, so to speak. He has said repeatedly that he doesn’t pay attention to star rankings, because he knows what he is looking for. He is certainly not looking at what everyone else thinks of his recruits. Plain and simple. Obviously, he is getting good players despite what the rankings say. He can’t go 50-3 in 4 years by recruiting one-legged hobos and escaped mental patients, which is what the national press seems to think we’re doing.

However, I will say there is one positive aspect of this entire industry for us here at Boise State. Every one of the type of kids we get feels slighted by the rankings. They know the 2 stars they got isn’t accurate. Coach Pete looks for those kids with a chip on their shoulder and looking to prove someone wrong. And that is exactly what they do.

So, later today when you hear about how well, or how poorly your favorite school did in recruiting this year take heart. None of it is by itself indicative of how your team will do in the coming years, good or bad. Just relax. Spring football starts in a few weeks anyway.

 

I know I haven’t written as much about Boise State football in the recent months as I did early on in this blog. Probably a function of less time to blog, and more important events going on. But, I’ve held my tongue enough. In the wake of the loss to TCU this past Saturday, I have some observations I’d like to pass along.

Note, I have not read a single analysis, recap or opinion of this game. I’ve been in a self-imposed 100% media blackout since that field goal try went wide right. So, if anything I’m writing here has been repeated elsewhere just know that these are my thoughts and my thoughts alone.

Also, this is not just about that game, although there will be plenty of thoughts about that in here. There will be season long reflections as well. Some of these things have been nagging away at me, and took the focus of a loss to bring out. For the record, I did enjoy the orange uniforms with the white helmets. Unfortunately, with the outcome of the game we may not see that combination again any time soon…

Here goes nothing.

First off, let me say that losing sucks. Losing at home sucks worse. Having been to every home game since 1992, I’ve seen plenty of losses. 1996 comes to mind when we went 2-10 including 6 home losses. However, we hadn’t lost a regular season home game since 2001. Hadn’t lost a home conference game since 1998. That is domination. I don’t care who you’re playing.

So, this is uncharted territory.

Saturday was the perfect game to highlight what went wrong with this team. Some in our control, some not. There is plenty of blame to go around.

1. I think it was obvious that our coaches got out game-planned. Because TCU had rushed for 390 yards the previous week against Wyoming, that was what Boise State’s coaches thought they would need to stop. However, TCU’s coaching staff knew that Petersen and co. would go that route, so they decided to go the other way and throw over the top. You can tell that Boise State’s defense was geared up to stop the run. That is why the DBs kept jumping on the play action and pump fakes leaving wide open receivers to catch 75 yard touchdown passes. I’m sure they had been drilled during the week that they would need to support the run stoppers. By the time the 2nd half rolled around and adjustments could be made, the damage had been done. I mean, we won the 2nd half 21-16. Unfortunately, we were down 20-14 at half. Side note, we did stop their run. They only had 33 rushing yards on 26 attempts. Unfortunately, they also threw for 473 yards…

2. Injuries. Oh god the injuries. Let me say that we really missed having Jerrell Gavins in this game. The senior CB was having a huge season before his season-ending injury. Jamar Taylor, a junior CB is also hurt. Ebo Makinde apparently pulled his hammy on one of those bombs. This left us with sophomores and freshmen with limited experience at corner. TCUs game plan went right at these guys. While some of these guys will be really good, true frosh Lee Hightower I’m looking at you, they weren’t ready for prime time on Saturday.

While we’re talking injuries let’s look at running back. Drew Wright, the 4th or 5th string running back was in there at the end, to fumble away the chance we had to salt the game away. That fumble is what gave TCU the ball and the chance to come back. Nice enough player, but the guy you want to see running the ball when you’re up 35, not at crunch time. Doug Martin, the clear #1 running back was injured a week ago against UNLV. He was in uniform, but obviously couldn’t go. #2 DJ Harper had a good day running the ball, but was apparently injured on the previous possession. Malcolm Johnson, who probably would have been the 3rd RB blew out his ACL in fall camp. True freshman Jay Ajayi  could have burned his redshirt year, except he blew out his knee in practice a couple weeks ago. Leaving really only Drew Wright to tote the rock, against a team who’s only hope was to force a turnover. Note, after the fumble when Boise State got the ball back, Doug Martin went into the game but he was obviously not 100%.

3. Our receiving corps. We have a lot of good players at receiver. In the off season I got really tired of hearing the national media say how we’d never be able to replace Titus Young and Austin Pettis. I thought we’d certainly have the players to do it. Now, while all of our receivers are good, none of them are explosive. We basically have 5 possession/slot receivers. Shoemaker is really good. Miller is already really good, and may someday be great. That deep ball that Kellen Moore completed to true freshman Dallas Burroughs on Saturday was the first true bomb I can remember seeing all season. We’ve had long touchdowns, but they’ve usually been caused by poor defense and were passes of 15-20 yards that the receiver took the rest of the way. Nobody has elite speed. Nobody can get open deep. They can all run good routes and get open, and Moore is amazing enough to fit the ball into tight spaces. But that deep threat is not there. Geraldo Boldewijn was supposed to be that threat, but I just don’t think he’s up to the task (and he missed the first 4 games of the year).

4. I think we miss previous offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin more than I thought we would. No offense to current OC Brent Pease, but the offense just doesn’t seem to have the same spark… that same precision as in previous years. Harsin (now at Texas) is a supreme play caller. He would get a defense on it’s heels, then press every advantage. I’m not sure I’m seeing that this year. Feels like we’ve had way more 3 and outs. I know, fans who complain about play calling are usually idiots and all. I’m not saying I could do it better or anything. I’m saying I think that Harsin DID do it better. That’s the limit of my knowledge in that area.

5. Speaking of coaching, the end of the game I have a problem with as well. It’s been well known that we have a serious problem in the kicking game. Obviously, when you attempt a grand total of 4 field goals in 8 games, that doesn’t scream confidence. Not to mention, I’ve seen more missed/flubbed/blocked extra points this year to last me a good long time. Now, I don’t want to pile on our freshman kicker any more than he’s already gotten. Instead I have issues with the coaches. After a decent last minute drive to get in position we had the ball on the 20 yard line, with 20 seconds and a time out. Instead of riding the arm of your Heisman finalist and winningest QB in NCAA history, you decide to have him run into the middle of the field and lay down, to set up that ill fated kick. I will never understand that call. You HAVE to keep the ball in Moore’s hands. He’s done it before, see VT last year. He’s a senior. He was 46-2 for a reason. Instead, you decide to put the game on the foot of a freshman who’s made 3 field goals all year. I just don’t get it.

6. Frankly, I just don’t think we’re as good as last year. Good enough to kick Georgia’s teeth in. But still, not as good.

7. What really bums me out is with this loss, and the Nevada loss last year, is we’ve essentially wasted the last 2 seasons of Kellen Moore. We got to the BCS in ’10 vs TCU and won. But last year, we were really primed for something special. We’d have gone to the Rose Bowl. Instead we had to choke away that Nevada game. This year we had perhaps an admitted longshot at a national championship game. At worst, we were looking at a probable Sugar Bowl. Now? We’ll be lucky to get back into the Las Vegas bowl. It’s just depressing. You only get so many chances to see a transcendent player on the biggest stage. We blew 2 of them.

8. I hate having a college football system where we have to go undefeated to get a taste of anything above facing the 8th best Pac-12 team in some crappy bowl nobody cares about. Despite how we’ve made it look in previous seasons, going undefeated is hard. I don’t care who you play. If it was so easy, more teams who play so-called “weak schedules” would do it. That really sucks.

9. I really hope our pass defense isn’t as bad as it looked. San Diego State has been known to throw the ball around and we have them in their house this weekend. Yikes.

Ok, on to a few of the more positive things I’ve got.

1. If we had to lose this year, I’d pick to lose to TCU. At least they have some national cache. If they hadn’t choked away 2 early games, they could have easily come in here undefeated. I wanted to beat Georgia. Badly. That gets the “you’ve never beat an SEC team” monkey off our back. Losing to anyone else would have be way worse.

2. At least now I can stop worrying about polls, and what other teams are doing and everything else. Small consolation, however. Perhaps this next weekend I can just enjoy football without hoping that Georgia is winning, and Oklahoma State is losing or whatever else. I just know that none of it really matters now. That being said, I still did enjoy watching Oregon stomp a mudhole in Stanford’s ass Saturday night. I KNEW Stanford was overrated. They hadn’t played anyone. At all. And got exposed. That was fun.

3. TCU’s coach Patterson said after the game that the Big 12 should absolutely get Boise State into it’s conference. Of course, that probably isn’t going to happen, but was good for someone to say.

4. All things being equal, we’re still living in an era of 46-3 with those 3 losses coming by a combined 5 points.

5. I still love Boise State. No loss, no 10 losses, no 50 losses will ever change that. Ever.

6. When we got home from the game, I was obviously still pretty salty. But we walked in the door and Alex saw me and came walking right over to me wearing her little Boise State shirt. Sorta puts things into perspective. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, but perhaps it’s not all as bad as it could seem.

 

It’s that day.  Fiesta Bowl.

Am I nervous?  Um… most certainly.  I think the worst part of bowl games is the huge long break you have from the end of the season until the game.  It just gives you more and more time to think about all the permutations on what could happen.  During the regular season, all you usually have is a week to think about a big upcoming opponent.  Bowl games, however, give you over a month to stew in your own juices.

My only saving grace is that I’ve managed to distract myself more this year.  That was intentional, and probably good for me in the long run.  Worrying about this game wouldn’t get me anywhere.

Unfortunately, I was unable to make the pilgrimage this time around.  Of course, as the game got closer and closer the regret grew, but what can ya do?  Last time, I was single and really had no bills at all.  Now, I’m married with different priorities.  Yeah, I could have probably scrounged up the thousand dollars or more it would have cost me to go down (by myself) but in all actuality that money could be better spent elsewhere.  That doesn’t make game day any easier, however.  I guess it would be different if the only way to see the game was to be there.  But it’s not.  I get to watch it on my giant flat screen in glorious HD.  That isn’t too bad of consolation prize, if you ask me.

I did have a thought about this whole thing.  Now, stick with me because this could be a little blasphemous… Winning or losing a bowl game, specifically this bowl game, really doesn’t matter a lot in the grand scheme of things.  Now, I know what you’re thinking… but hear me out.  This line of reasoning only works for a non-AQ (automatic qualifier for the BCS).  Obviously, the ultimate goal for any non-AQ school, hell for any school, is to make it to a BCS game.  That is what everyone is shooting for.  That is the cherry on top.  For a non-AQ school to get there, more than likely they have to go undefeated.  There is no other option.  So, that makes EVERY game of the regular season incredibly important.  Week after week.  Even those snoozers against 1-AA opponents.  You can’t relax.  You can’t have an off day.  You lose, you’re done.  Back to the Preparation-H bowl that nobody watches.  It’s 3 full months of on the edge of your seat football.

So, after surviving the season long meat grinder to get to the big game, ultimately the outcome of that game means far less than the games leading up to it.  Will a win or loss in the Fiesta Bowl affect next season?  Perhaps emotionally, but unless we get absolutely blown out, our pre-season ranking will have more to do with our overall record and number of returning starters, not the outcome of one game.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I dearly want to win this game.  But to lose to TCU (whom I’ve repeatedly said is the best team in the country this year) in this game wouldn’t be as bad as, say, losing to Nevada at home and knocking ourselves completely out of the BCS picture.  We made the big dance.  We get the big stage.  We get the big payout.  Lose in the regular season and all that is gone.  Does that make any sense?

Today, I’m wearing my lucky football gear.  Orange ’06 Nike coaches polo with a white mock turtleneck with the Boise State logo on the collar and orange Nike hat.  This is the most powerful gameday getup I have.  It’s undefeated.  I only break it out for the really big games.  I’m afraid it will lose it’s power over time and I don’t want to waste it on games that don’t matter as much.  It worked at the first Fiesta Bowl in ’07, and against Oregon State that same year.  It worked at Oregon last year.  It worked against Oregon again this year.  When I went to Washington in ’07, I forgot the hat, and we lost.  That one was on me, I take full responsibility.  Yes, I have considered the fact that I may well be completely insane.

So, that’s all I got.  Game day is here.  Let’s get on with this already.

Go Broncos!