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Monday Special…December 23, 2024.
I, for one, am not surprised by the point spread of 10½ for Penn State against Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. In a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world, the Nittany Lions’ 38-10 waxing of SMU Saturday in the College Football Playoff first round set the table for this. You’ve got the ol’ Big Ten versus Mountain West thing. But you can look at it from a Boise State-Oregon perspective in September. The Broncos languished as three-touchdown underdogs against the Ducks for much of the week before the line settled at 18½ points at gametime. Boise State, of course, lost by three points after allowing two special teams touchdowns. SMU gave up two pick-sixes—and lost by 28. And there’s the matter of the Ducks beating Penn State for the Big Ten championship. That’s why they play the games, sports fans.
NFL TALENT DOTS THE ROSTER
Penn State has loads of NFL talent. That’s one of the reasons the Nittany Lions are favored by double-digits. As many as nine players are projected to go in the NFL Draft next spring, two of them in the first round. They are names you need to know. One is edge rusher Abdul Carter, who has 11 sacks and 21.5 tackles-for-loss, tops in the Big Ten, and is a first-team All-American. Just like Tyler Warren. You think Matt Lauter has had a good season with 43 catches—most by a Boise State tight end in 23 years? Warren’s got 92 receptions for 1,095 yards and is the winner of the Mackey Award that goes to the nation’s top tight end. Quarterback Drew Allar could be a first-round draft pick—he’s returning to Penn State for his senior year in 2025.
A SENTIMENTAL FAVORITE?
“Here’s your bandwagon guide to the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff,” read the lead to the post from The Athletic, above a photo of Lauter leading Boise State onto the blue turf with the Dan Paul Hammer. The No. 1 bandwagon recommended by writer Antonio Morales is that of the Broncos. Ashton Jeanty is “must-see TV”—and, reasons Morales, “It would be cool to support one of the first BCS busters and a program that was never allowed to compete for the national championship in the past.” His biggest question mark is Maddux Madsen. Morales notes, “They can play with the best of them on any given day. But be warned, as appealing as the Cinderella stories might be, college football has always been a sport that’s favored Goliath, not David.” Except on New Year’s Day, 2007, for cryin’ out loud.
EVERY SINGLE VOTER: JEANTY
Up until now, any first-team All-America honor would be the bee’s knees for a Boise State football player. Kellen Moore got a few of those, and Nate Potter and Ryan Clady received enough to be named Consensus All-Americans. But Jeanty? He is not only a Consensus pick, he has become the Broncos’ first unanimous All-American across each of the NCAA-designated selectors. This year, they are AP, the American Football Coaches Association, the Football Writers Association of America, Sporting News, and the Walter Camp Football Foundation. In any other year, this amazing accomplishment would be accompanied by a Heisman Trophy, but that’s water under the bridge. Jeanty is, as he says, “100 percent” motivated, and the Fiesta Bowl and the CFP quarterfinals are nine days away.
DANIELSON WANTS A SHARED PAYDAY
Dan Mullen, the new coach at UNLV, is going to be paid $3.5 million per year. That’s over a couple mill more than Boise State’s Spencer Danielson, who clearly deserves more than he’s getting. Word is that athletic director Jeramiah Dickey is negotiating a new contract with him. Maybe Danielson looks at this situation the way Jeanty did a year ago. Not that Danielson is being pulled multiple ways like Jeanty was, but you have to think he wants to stay here for a long time. Last December, Jeanty just wanted to know that the school cared enough to make an effort to keep him. And even though he could have made over three times more in NIL money elsewhere, he appreciated what the Broncos did. Danielson’s in the same boat. His wish is for better contracts for his staff. You can bet Boise State cares about that.
IT’S POTATO TIME
The 28th Famous Idaho Potato Bowl kicks off today at 12:30 on the blue turf, adorned with a new set of goal posts in the north end zone. It’s Northern Illinois against Fresno State. NIU will not have its quarterback, Ethan Hampton, and the Bulldogs will not have theirs, Mikey Keene, as both have entered the transfer portal. Fresno State is also missing portal entrant Malik Sherrod, the talented running back who may be headed to Boise State. Northern Illinois will have its coach, Thomas Hammock, who was so famously emotional after his team upset Notre Dame in September. On the other hand, it will be Tim Skipper’s final game as interim coach of the Bulldogs, with the program having elected to hire Matt Entz. Is this one hard to gauge, or what?
CARDENAS DELIVERS THE DIMES
The story of Saturday’s 77-59 Boise State win over Air Force game starts—and essentially ends—with Broncos point guard Alvaro Cardenas. He not only put up the unconventional double-double with 15 points and 12 assists, he also may now share Boise State’s single-game assists record. The coaching staff contends that Cardenas should have had one more and have asked for a review. That would give him 13, matching the school record set by Bryan DeFares back in 2004 in an NIT game against UNLV. Interestingly enough, DeFares attended the game. He had to be impressed by Cardenas’ acrobatic passes inside, a number of them setting up O’Mar Stanley layups and dunks. It was a nice way to start conference play in the Mountain West.
THE THREES ARE SCARCE, THOUGH
Maybe Boise State’s groove is rounding into form—it seems to be coming later than in the past few seasons. But a continuing concern as conference play gets going is the Broncos’ three-point struggles. They were just 8-for-32 in the win over Texas Southern last Tuesday night—then they went 3-for-13 against Air Force. For the season, the Broncos are shooting just 30 percent from beyond the arc, 10th in the Mountain West and tied for 317th out of the 355 Division I teams in the country. The timeline for improvement? Well, San Diego State will be here a week from this Saturday.
STEELIES DUST OFF THEIR BROOMS
The Idaho Steelheads held serve on home ice last week and picked up their first three-game sweep since late October, taking care of the Rapid City Rush. The weekend games were all about Ty Pelton-Byce, who recorded a hat trick in a 6-5 overtime win Friday—including the decisive goal in the OT—and scored another game-winner in Saturday’s 4-3 victory. The hat trick was the first of Pelton-Byce’s pro career. Next up for the Steelies is a Friday-Saturday set on the road against the Wichita Thunder.
A BOISE START – A SAD FINISH
There are lots of Bay Area expatriates in the Treasure Valley, and their sports world took another hit over the weekend with the death of baseball great Rickey Henderson. He’s considered the greatest Oakland A’s player of all time, and this is a sadly fitting exclamation point on a gut-wrenching year for A’s fans. Oakland drafted Henderson in the fourth round of the 1976 MLB Draft and sent him to Boise to begin his pro career. He batted .336 for the Boise A’s that summer with 29 stolen bases before rapidly climbing the minor league ladder and debuting with Oakland in 1979. Henderson holds MLB career records with 2,295 runs and 1,406 stolen bases and is the single-season stolen base king, swiping 130 in 1982. He would have been 66 on Christmas Day.
VANDALS ARE SET – COUGARS ARE NOT
It’s been a tumultuous time for football on the Palouse. Two days after Dave Clawson suddenly resigned as coach at Wake Forest, Jake Dickert suddenly bolted Washington State last week to replace Clawson with the Demon Deacons. It was a waving of the white flag by Dickert as WSU, among other things, has been raided by the transfer portal. Meanwhile, Idaho moved quickly to replace Jason Eck, now the coach at New Mexico. The Vandals hired Thomas Ford, the Oregon State running backs coach who was on Eck’s staff during his first two seasons in Moscow. Ford’s only college head coaching experience was at Division III Simon Fraser in British Columbia, but players appear to be all aboard with him.
This Day In Sports…brought to you by WESTERN HEATING & AIR…the experts you can trust!
December 23, 2003: Boise State’s first out-of-town bowl game as a Division I-A school, an unlikely matchup with another Top 25 team in the inaugural Fort Worth Bowl. The 18th-ranked Broncos fell behind 19th-ranked TCU 21-7 in the second quarter but rallied to tie it at halftime. Then Ryan Dinwiddie threw the 82nd and final touchdown pass of his Boise State career, an 18-yard fourth quarter fade to true freshman tight end Derek Schouman, to cap a 34-31 win. Dinwiddie passed for 325 yards and three TDs to earn MVP honors, while T.J. Acree took ESPN’s Player of the Game nod with 150 receiving yards and a touchdown.
And oh by the way, Merry Christmas!
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK. He also served as color commentator on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football for 14 seasons.)
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