Gutsy Boise State Steals BCS Spotlight

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.

"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.

The 40 yard dash, also simply called the 40, is a sprint covering 40 yards. It is primarily run to evaluate the speed of American football players by scouts, particularly for the NFL Draft but also for collegiate recruiting. A player's 40 time can heavily impact his prospects in college or the pros. This was traditionally only true for the 'skill' positions such as quarterback, running back, wide receiver, and defensive back, although now a fast 40 yard dash time is considered important for almost every position.

Generally, any time under 4.4 seconds is considered exceptionally fast even at the NFL level. Times between 4.4 and 4.6 seconds are good for the NFL. Times above 5 seconds are typically run only by linemen; the slowest time recorded at the 2006 combine was 5.41 seconds by offensive lineman Josh Hall.

Contents [hide]
1 Origins
2 Electronic vs. Hand Timing
3 Best times
4 Criticisms
5 Notes

[edit] Origins
The 40 is run because it showcases acceleration and speed which are both crucial in the NFL, being that football is a game of short bursts of speed. Among his many innovations such as instituting press box coaches, playbooks, and intelligence and psychological testing, Paul Brown, the legendary football coach, is credited with initially timing players at 40 yards because he believed this was the distance you had to run to cover a kickoff.

[edit] Electronic vs. Hand Timing
Because so much emphasis is placed on the 40, many players or programs claim to have run much faster times than they actually did. Part of this is hype from college programs wishing to promote their players by claiming they have run sensational times in practice. Another significant issue is that many colleges time players by hand, which typically records inaccurately low times. Because human reaction time is slow, this typically takes as much as 0.25 seconds off a player's time.

As a general rule, only 40 yard dash times recorded electronically can be considered accurate. This method is used at the NFL Combine. However, because this method usually records correct, slower times, many players in recent years have declined to be timed electronically, preferring to be timed in personal workouts where they think they will get a more favorable time by hand.

[edit] Best times
Many reported times are unreliable due to differences in timing methods if not intentional falsifications. The fastest time officially recorded by the NFL was 4.29 seconds by Deion Sanders in 1989 [1], although the NFL did not begin electronic timing until 1990. In the electronic timing era, the fastest recorded time at the NFL Combine was 4.31 seconds by cornerbacks Fabian Washington, Chris McKenzie, Carlos Rogers, and Darrent Williams in 2005.[2] Most other times close to 4.0 are untrustworthy due to the use of hand timing, but it is often claimed that players including Sanders, Aaron Glenn, DeAngelo Hall, Michael Vick, Bo Jackson, Randy Moss, Darrell Green, Laveranues Coles, and Alexander Wright have run the 4.1-4.2 range in college workouts. The absolute fastest time has likely not been run by a football player but by a sprinter in track and field. Although 40 yards is never run, the 60 meter dash is a well-regulated track and field distance, the official record for which is 6.39 seconds by Maurice Greene. Tapes of sprinter Ben Johnson's world-record breaking 1988 100 meter dash (which was later annulled due to Johnson's steroid use), however, show that Johnson ran the 60 m in 6.37 seconds; this is considered the most quickly started race ever run.[3] Nonetheless, Johnson "only" covered the first 40 yards in 4.38 seconds. It is highly doubtful that any football player could run 40 yards faster than a world-class sprinter in spikes on a track, casting doubts on many claimed 40 yard times.

However, in track and field races, the runner must react to the starting gun, which can take 0.2-0.3 seconds. For electronically timed 40 yard dashes, the runner is allowed to start when he wishes, which automatically triggers the clock. This difference would indicate that, at peak form, Johnson more likely ran the 40 yard dash in 4.08-4.18 seconds, making claims of 4.2-range 40 times more credible.

[edit] Criticisms
Some football analysts state that the 40 yard dash is poorly correlated with football ability, as most players never run this distance in a game. Similarly, it is not a good indicator of 'football speed,' or how fast a player will actually seem when running while wearing a full uniform on grass and in the presence of opposing players. Some players with fast 40 times appear much slower in actual games, while other players with slow 40 times appear very quick.

Many players have gone on to have stellar NFL careers after running a disappointing 40 time, for example:

Jerry Rice reportedly ran a 4.6 or 4.7 second 40-yard dash (regarded as mediocre figures for a wide receiver), and, consequently, was drafted only 16th overall in the 1985 NFL Draft, despite a stellar college career. He went out to play 13 Pro Bowls, win 3 Super Bowls, and break numerous NFL records (at the time of his retirement he had 28 NFL records). Said former teammate Ronnie Lott, "Jerry may been a 4.6 or a 4.7, but he was a 4.2 on Sundays."
Emmitt Smith ran the 40 in 4.71 seconds, considered relatively slow for a running back. Despite his record-breaking college career, he was selected 17th in the 1990 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys. Another running back, Blair Thomas, was selected much earlier with the second pick, in part because of his 4.4 second 40 yard dash. Smith went on to set the all-time rushing mark and win three Super Bowls, while Thomas had a disappointing career.
Of course, there may be a man bites dog bias in such stories, there are countless examples of a slow 40 yard dash time correctly indicating that a successful college player will not be effective in the faster NFL. Also, while the 40 yard dash is the most talked about by fans, scouts also consider 10 and 20 yard dashes, as well as shuttle runs and cone drills, as measures of a players quickness.

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