Week 12 Wrap-up: Boise State Dominates and Utah Gets a Little Lucky

Week 12 Wrap-up: Boise State Dominates and Utah Gets a Little Lucky

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If you saw any of the Boise State game on Friday night, you had to be impressed with their performance. They absolutely bludgeoned Fresno State 51-0. And it wasn’t like Boise put 28 on them in the first quarter and then it was over. Boise State methodically took Fresno State apart all night, scoring frequently and more impressively, not allowing Fresno State to do anything at all on offense. Fresno State is no Nevada, but they had a solid 6-3 record going into the game, a great coach and respected program. I’ve watched several BSU games this year and I think their dismantling of Fresno State might have been their best performance so far. I’ve said it before – Boise State is the real deal. They fly to the ball. They have incredible athletes. They are sure tacklers. They have super star playmakers on offense and a great quarterback. They could play with and beat any team in the country in a championship game.
 I don’t want to hear that they don’t recruit the same size and speed of the SEC or they don’t play an SEC schedule. Guess what? No one outside the top half of the SEC does those things. So what that means is there are about 114/120 Division 1 college football programs with rosters that do not have 15 starters who were 5 star recruits and guaranteed 1st, 2nd or 3rd round draft picks. In other words, the playing field is more level than you think and it is still a team game. Boise State is one of the best teams around. And yes, if they played Alabama‘s schedule they might lose1-3 games a year but they would be properly respected as a top-10 team, like Alabama is.
Finally and most importantly, Boise State is just a ton of fun to watch. Yeah, the turf is ridiculous but how can you not get with the fact that a team from a far flung part of the country, with a totally down to earth coach, and wonderfully creative play calling, is taking over college football. Not to mention they only started playing Division 1 football in 1996. Although their stadium only holds 32,000 the atmosphere on game day is incredible and the entire town goes bonkers for the team year round. By the way, Boise State added an incredible press box in 2008 increasing their capacity from 30,000 to 32,000. The next expansion is already in the works.
Bottom line – Boise State is to college football, what Gonzaga is to basketball, only even more consistent. They are fantastic entertainment. The Auburn-Alabama game will be the most important to watch on Friday, but my bet is the Boise State-Nevada contest will be the most entertaining.
Utah-
It sure is better to be lucky than good. I mentioned last week that Utah would need a little jump start to get them going. A hail mary pass at the end of the 1st half and a blocked point were just what the doctor ordered. I also mentioned that Utah had better score some points because SDSU has a pro-caliber quarterback. I was correct the Aztecs would score some points but I was dead wrong in calling Ryan Lindley a future pro. Though he threw for about 600 yards, 2 of his 3 interceptions were just dreadful, especially the last one. He had 1:30 remaining and was moving his team down the field for a winning score when he unnecessarily threw up what looked like a last second desperation pass that was picked off in the end zone. There was just no reason for it. So yeah, Utah got a little lucky but luck seems to gravitate toward good teams. Utah found a way to get it done and now it’s on to the showdown with BYU.
As for BYU – no surprises. They hammered New Mexico and showed highlights of Beck to Harline and Max Hall to Andrew George on the video board the entire second half in anticipation of this Saturday.
TCU was off this week and will need to beat New Mexico 85-0 on Saturday to prevent Boise State from overtaking them in the BCS rankings.

Matt Nielson has been writing about the college sports landscape in Utah and the Intermountain West since 2010. When he’s not pretending to be a professional blogger, he works full time as a residential real estate agent and house flipper. Matt graduated from Brigham Young University in 2000. He and his family reside in Salt Lake City, UT.

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