Thursday, September 28, 2006.

What do the Boise State Broncos want to do Saturday? Make Brett Ratliff beat ‘em. What do the Utah Utes want to do Saturday? Make Jared Zabransky beat ‘em. Mirror image goals from mirror image teams. When Utah breaks down tape of the Bronco offense, it sees Ian Johnson’s locomotive style—on pace for a 2,000-yard season and almost 30 touchdowns as you saw in my latest “Unfair To Ian” Scott Slant on Sunday Sports Extra the other night. (It is indeed unfair to look at anything beyond Saturday, considering Johnson’s status as a marked man.) The Utes want to clean things up from the San Diego State game, when they allowed 204 rushing yards. That’s deceiving, though, as the Aztecs got 71 of them on a final drive that didn’t produce any points.

The Utah defense is as good or better than Wyoming’s, and Zabransky didn’t fare so well in Laramie. Neither did Drisan James, and he’s going to be a key Saturday. How about the rollercoaster James is on? The senior wideout had the 125-yard game in the season opener versus Sacramento State, was shut out against Oregon State, made four receptions for only 16 yards at Wyoming (although that could have been five for 67 and a touchdown had a Zabransky deep throw been on target in the second quarter), and had the very public case of the drops against Hawaii. To James’ credit, he caught fire in the second half last Saturday and ended up with five catches for 66 yards.

On the “stop the run” subject, the Bronco defense will be trying to neutralize Darryl Poston, the USC transfer who is finally starting at running back as a senior for the Utes. Poston hasn’t exactly gotten untracked like Ian Johnson has, rushing for 154 yards this season to Johnson’s 622. That brings us to quarterback Brett Ratliff, who shares some characteristics with Zabransky. Ratliff, who rescued Utah with wins over BYU and Georgia Tech to finish last season, is a good runner with deceptive speed. As a passer he’s had a little trouble with his accuracy—he was under 50 percent versus UCLA and San Diego State. And like Zabransky, he has just one 200-yard game. But Ratliff’s touchdown-to-interception ratio is even better than Z’s, eight TDs to one pick. And you have this huge sidebar: Utah is the only team in the country that hasn’t allowed a sack yet this year.

If the Broncos and Utes are lucky enough to find this game on TV tonight, they’ll probably watch it. BYU plays TCU on Versus, formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network—part of College Sports TV’s crazy Mountain West package. Neither BSU nor the “U” would mind a BYU upset tonight, but it won’t be easy in Fort Worth. The Horned Frogs are gunning for their 14th straight win, which would tie a school record set 68 years ago. And they’re coming off a bye week following their 12-3 stifling of Texas Tech. Last year TCU trailed the Cougars by 18 points in the third quarter in Provo before rallying for a 51-50 victory.

Fresno State held a seniors-only meeting with coach Pat Hill early last week to try to straighten out the Bulldogs’ 1-2 start. But really, how far away are they from being themselves? A couple weird special teams episodes resulted in narrow losses to Oregon and Washington—otherwise, Fresno State could be undefeated. I’m thinking the Bulldogs will be just fine. Hey, they’re still in first place in the WAC, and that’s what their fans really want them to worry about. They’ve had a bye week to iron things out before getting Colorado State at home Saturday.

With the Iowa Stars sending six players to the Idaho Steelheads yesterday, coach Derek Laxdal is finalizing his squad for training camp, which begins Tuesday on the Qwest Arena ice. It's expected that long-time Steelhead Jeremy Mylymok will not be on the roster next week, although he hasn't officially announced his retirement yet. Whatever the 34-year-old defenseman ends up doing, he’ll be no less entrenched in the community, having spent this summer conducting youth hockey camps in Boise and McCall. Despite a twilight season of sorts in 2005-06, Mylymok still managed to play 70 of the Steelies’ 72 regular season games and score 17 points while racking up 145 penalty minutes. Of the six player sent down, by the way, Greg Rallo’s the only one who had quality time in Idaho last season—seven games and four points.

The Utah Jazz also open their training camp in Boise next week, and it won’t be closed to the public wire-to-wire after all. There’ll be one practice session opened up Friday night, October 6, the night before the Jazz break camp. A few of the players in town next week might be back, of course, wearing Idaho Stampede uniforms in the NBA Development League. One possibility is Dee Brown, the Jazz’s second round draft pick, if he doesn’t opt for Europe. Brown struggled in the Rocky Mountain Revue summer league as he tries to make the transition from Illinois shooting guard to NBA point guard.

Just to be named to the U.S. Alpine ski team is a victory for Boise’s Dane Spencer. Anything he does on the World Cup circuit this winter is gravy. Spencer suffered serious head, neck and pelvic injuries after a crash in a Nor-Am downhill at Big Mountain, Montana, on Valentine’s Day. At the time some doctors thought the 28-year-old Boise High grad was lucky to survive, but here he is on the national team 7½ months later. Spencer had narrowly missed making the U.S. Olympic team for the 2006 Torino Games after finishing 16th in the Olympic giant slalom at Salt Lake in 2002.

This Day In Sports…September 28, 1941:

Boston Red Sox outfielder Ted Williams goes 6-for-8 in a doubleheader on the final day of the season to finish with a .406 batting average—the last time a major leaguer has topped .400. And on this day in 1960, Williams played the last game of his career and hit a home run in his final at-bat.

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment Sunday nights at 10:30PM on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors five sports segments each weekday on ESPN Radio 1350 KTIK.)

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