Posted on 01/04/2007 11:24:18 PM PST by doug from upland
Gutsy Boise State Steals BCS Spotlight
By ANDREW BAGNATO Friday, January 05, 2007
Oklahoma players Rufus Alexander (42) and Carl Pendleton (68) react as Boise State's Ian Johnson (41) scores the game-winning two point conversion during the overtime of the Fiesta Bowl college football game, Monday, Jan. 1, 2007, in Glendale, Ariz.. Boise State won, 43-42. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - The Boise State Broncos left their resort hotel Tuesday to make room for the Florida Gators, who arrived to prepare for next week's BCS title game against Ohio State. But the ninth-ranked Broncos remained the talk of college football on the day after their exhilarating 43-42 overtime victory over No. 7 Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl on Monday night in Glendale. That's what happens when a team comes out of the college football hinterlands and takes down a traditional powerhouse with plays that looked as if they were drawn up in the dirt.
For one day, at least, Boise State's victory cast a shadow over the Bowl Championship Series title game. Florida coach Urban Meyer and Ohio State's Jim Tressel both fielded questions about the upstart Broncos and their miraculous victory.
"I hate to say this, I fell asleep and my wife kept hitting me," Meyer said after the Gators landed at Sky Harbor Airport. "She said it was the greatest football game she ever saw."
Shelley Meyer wasn't alone. In a crowded bowl season, Boise State's victory was an unexpected delight that turned the tradition-laden Rose Bowl between Michigan and USC, which preceded it, into a virtual junior-varsity game.
"This probably goes down in the history of college football," said Broncos quarterback Jared Zabransky, who threw three touchdown passes to earn offensive most valuable player honors.
The Broncos blew an 18-point lead midway through the third quarter, then twice overcame touchdown deficits _ once in the final minute and again in overtime.
Two plays made it happen and left fans buzzing as they returned to work on Tuesday.
The first came on a hook-and-lateral pass with the Broncos trailing 35-28 and facing fourth-and-18 from the 50-yard line in the final seconds of regulation. Zabransky hit Drisan James at Oklahoma's 35, and James pitched the ball to Jerard Rabb, who outran the pursuit to the end zone with 7 seconds to play.
"You hope you never have to call it because it's not a good situation," said Boise State coach Chris Petersen, who is 13-0 as a head coach. "But we work on it every week, once a week on Friday. The guys love it."
That sent the game into overtime. After the Sooners' Adrian Peterson scored on a 25-yard run on the first play, the Broncos tied it up on a fourth-down pass from receiver Vinny Perretta to Derek Schouman.
Sensing that his players were exhausted, Petersen had already decided to go for 2. "We liked the play we had for a 2-point conversion," Petersen said. "It really wasn't a difficult decision at that point."
The Broncos lined up with three wide receivers to the right. Zabransky faked a pass to that side, then handed the ball behind his back to tailback Ian Johnson, who swept around left end and into the end zone.
The Sooners fell for it hook, line and sinker.
"We were kind of like in awe the way (Zabransky) did the misdirection with the ball," Oklahoma linebacker Rufus Alexander said.
If either play had failed, the Broncos would have become a footnote. Instead, the Western Athletic Conference champions became a prime exhibit in the case for opening the BCS to unaffiliated conferences.
"Boise State controlled the game," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said. "After Oklahoma came back, when Boise State had to pull out the trick plays, they pulled them out. And they didn't execute them against Sacramento State on Sept. 1. They executed them perfectly against Oklahoma on Jan. 1.
"I think it will, hopefully, at least diminish some of the fear or the concerns that were out there within the college football community that we didn't belong," Benson said.
Non-BCS conferences are 2-0 in BCS games. Two years ago, Mountain West champion Utah crushed Pittsburgh 35-7 in the Fiesta Bowl.
Meyer coached the Utes that night, but he had already accepted a big-money offer from the Gators. Two years later, he discounted the distinction between the six BCS conferences and their oft-overlooked brethren.
"I think that the separation of BCS, non-BCS, I think that era is over," Meyer said. "Everybody knows what Oklahoma was getting into _ everybody that knows football."
Still, there's a vast difference in resources. According to U.S. Department of Education statistics, Oklahoma reported that its football program earned $33.7 million and spent $13.8 million in 2005-06, the most recent figures available. Boise State reported that its football team earned $8.5 million and spent $4.5 million.
The Broncos were only invited to the Fiesta because the BCS, facing threats of federal legislation and lawsuits, eased access for unaffiliated conferences this year when it added the stand-alone title game. A year ago, Boise State would not have been guaranteed a BCS slot.
"I think that it is harder for some of the smaller conference schools to make it, but the BCS committee and the whole process has made it easier access, which is the right thing to do," Meyer said.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
The BEST college football game I've EVER seen.
I've never seen so many "trick" plays called and carried off with such precision!! They obviously practice them often for occasions such as this.
Breathtaking!! Heart-pounding!!
It was, as someone described it, the kind of ending in a football game that was invented by an author, except for the fact that it was real.
Opps. I meant:
Any one named after the third BEST Confederate leader, can't be all that bad!!
"Definitely" and "you know" also need to be stricken from the athletic vocabulary.
I do not know enough to really argue. I'm not a rabid Buckeye fan like my friends, who know everything about OSU football. But I am enough of a fan to revel in this year and have great fun with it.
My father always told me that good teams win ugly. That little saying could describe some of the more difficult aspects of my life.
There should be a Notre Dame rule for BCS bowls. A team has to beat at least one ranked team to get in a bowl. ND hasn't beaten a team that ended up in the top ten since Lou Holtz was coaching them.
FROM AN OKLAHOMA FOOTBALL BLOG ---
Five Reasons Boise State Wins The Fiesta Bowl
Posted Dec 31st 2006 9:11PM by Brian Cook
Filed under: Oklahoma Football, Big 12, WAC, BCS, Bowl Games, Boise State Football
1. Ian Johnson Will Crochet Your Ass. At least, until the NCAA tells him not to. Johnson may be the best back Oklahoma's seen this year. Yes, even though he plays in the WAC. In Boise State's blowout of a pretty good Oregon State team Johnson went flapjack nuts, rushing for 240 yards and five touchdowns. 240 yards! Five touchdowns! On... 22 carries! Inconceivable. He even caught a pass for 21 yards. That Oregon State team finished 30th in rush defense and won 10 games.
2. Disrespect and Disinterest. This is the biggest football game in the history of Boise State's program; to Oklahoma it is an irritation and a letdown to make a BCS game and get thrown a team that plays its home games on hideous blue turf and has bowl game on its home field just so it doesn't get screwed. There must be a giant gap between the amount of attention each team is paying in practice; Oklahoma may be rusty.
3. It's Still Zabransky. You may remember Boise State's quarterback melting down against Georgia a year ago. Well, this year he's like, older and not as prone to turning the ball over eighty times in the first quarter. That Georgia game has distorted the conventional wisdom about Boise, but the margin of that win was more fluky turnovers than anything else. He's unlikely to repeat that performance.
4. The Chain. You know those hilarious victory chain things that conclusively prove that Duke is better than Florida because twenty different teams beat other teams, etc, etc.? Well, this is Boise over Oklahoma:
Boise St beat
Oregon St who beat
Oregon who beat
Oklahoma
Three steps....well... sort of.
5. Innerspace! Boise defenders are so hilariously small that Oklahoma offensive linemen will whiff on their attempts to block them. The defenders will burrow their way through the vascular systems of their opponents, emerging on the other side for copious TFLs.
What? It could happen.
That's the way they've been playing them all year -- speed, precision, and a bit of trickery. They aren't undefeated for nothing!
It's just that they aren't a "name" school -- yet -- so the networks don't broadcast them on Saturdays.
I'm in the Boise viewing area, so I've seen them a few times this year. Trust me, the Fiesta Bowl wasn't a fluke. These are deep-down gritty and resourceful take-chance guys, and their coach is, too.
Bully boys hey! Bully boys ho!
I don't know much about Florida, but an SC-Ohio State game would be quite a show. Having lost two games, however, SC didn't belong there.
Hey, enjoy! OSU had a super year, and will probably cap it on Monday. Their game with Michigan this year will be long remembered.
Fox owns the rights to the TV broadcast. Boise St got paid millions just for making the game.
Doug, I have to disagree!!
You may know, I am a USC fan and you are wrong in that statement. SC proved they did not deserve a chance to meet Ohio when they lost to Oregon State!
Yep, they really screwed up with the loss to Oregon State. But Florida also had one loss. Had they beaten UCLA, they were in. Michigan already lost to Ohio State, so they couldn't play them again.
The 2 starting offensive lines were almost exactly the same total weight 1522 for OSU 1525 for Boise St.
Andrew Woodruff for State was the biggest he's a 331lb sophmore.
Thanks for the info. That is suprising.
The only thing the Bengals led the NFL in was arrests. Eight team members but some had multiple arrests. I do not know Marvin Lewis' criteria for selecting players, but penchant for thuggery must be high on his list. :)
Oh, yes! University of Cincinnati ended Rutgers perfect season. That was another hiight.
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