Tuesday, October 9, 2007.

If this is the Scott Slant, there must be a stat or two. What has happened with the Boise State defense this season is worth a few of those, especially after its best effort ever against a Division I-A opponent. The Broncos are allowing just 231 yards and 12 points a game, third and fifth best in the nation, respectively. And it comes from both phases—they’re sixth against the run and 10th versus the pass. Oh, here’s a negative. BSU is last in the WAC in red zone defense. But the Broncos have only seen an opponent in their red zone five times all season. So what if it’s resulted in scores all five times (four touchdowns and a field goal)? Five red zone trips in five games. The rest of the WAC’s defenses have had red zone visits from opposing offenses an average of 23 times this season.

New Mexico State was missing players due to injury Sunday night, as we all well know. But how about BSU pulling off the shutout and holding the Aggie offense to 89 yards while missing two of its defensive starters? Defensive end and senior captain Nick Schlekeway and freshman safety and leading tackler Jeron Johnson both suffered hamstring injuries late last week and did not play. The beneficiaries of playing time were freshman Ryan Winterswyk on the line and senior Austin Smith in the secondary. Winterswyk has seen plenty of playing time already this season and has been anointed a future star—he recorded 1½ sacks versus NMSU. Smith is a former starter and veteran special teams playmaker, a product of the depth the Bronco program has built during the new century. It was not a problem.

Coach Chris Petersen said yesterday not to read anything into the fact that Bush Hamdan was the only quarterback who didn’t see action in Sunday night’s 58-0 waxing of New Mexico State. Petersen said it’s “a shame” the Broncos didn’t have one more drive to get him in. But you have to feel badly for the guy who just two months ago right now was the consensus number one quarterback for BSU. Freshman Mike Coughlin is first off the bench right now. Nick Lomax looked fine in the fourth quarter. Then there’s Taylor Tharp, who wrestled the job away from the others in August. The senior has now thrown for over 1200 yards and nine touchdowns against four interceptions.

Coughlin ran things smoothly with the number one offense against the Aggies, throwing his first career touchdown. He only struggled with the twos. Which brings up an interesting comparison. Some have wondered if Coughlin’s ready for prime time, with the second-string offense not moving the ball as crisply. In Dirk Koetter’s final season in 2000, he had a freshman quarterback named Ryan Dinwiddie who was facing the same doubt after some appearances in mopup. During a 59-0 win over North Texas, Koetter put Dinwiddie in with the first team for onedrive, and he marched the Broncos 56 yards in six plays, throwing his first career touchdown pass to Jay Swillie. It’s all relative.

A look at the wacky WAC leaderboard shows BSU 1-0, of course, and Hawaii unbeaten in three conference games. Who else is at the top? Why, it’s Fresno State and San Jose State. Neither has reached the meat of its WAC schedule, although the Bulldogs’ road win at Nevada counts for a lot. If the conference has only three bowl berths this season, you’ve got to think Hawaii and BSU are primed for two of them. Fresno State may have sent the Wolf Pack an early knockout blow in the postseason derby. Nevada has to hope Hawaii goes unbeaten and goes to a BCS bowl or another upper-echelon bowl, this creating a fourth spot for the WAC. On the other hand, the Pack would probably need an upset of the Warriors in Reno to ensure bowl eligibility, and that would eliminate a UH trip outside the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl in December.

Speaking of bowls, the Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl is pushing hard now for ticket sales, which have been solid the past eight years with or without Boise State in the game. In Las Vegas, it used to matter who the opponents were, but the Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl is within 2,000 tickets of a sellout for 2007. It certainly doesn’t depend on UNLV, which has played in that bowl only once and doesn’t draw well in Sam Boyd Stadium anyway. The Vegas Bowl matches the Pac-10 and Mountain West, and the H-Bowl has its roots in that game. It was after 1996 that Las Vegas dropped its affiliation with the Big West Conference, and the Humanitarian Bowl was born out of necessity the following year.

Just two years after holding off Boise State 27-21 in the MPC Computers Bowl, Boston College is being called a national title contender, thanks to the upside-down nature of the 2007 season. And quarterback Matt Ryan, MVP of that 2005 game for BC, is now a Heisman hopeful. That’s according to Cory McCartney at SI.com. The implosion within the Top 25 the past two weeks has suddenly thrust the Eagles into the No. 4 spot in both polls. Sure, it’s Boston College’s 6-0 start is its best in 65 years, but No. 4? The Eagles one signature win was over Georgia Tech. “Say what you want about the ACC but don't sleep on this very real contender to reach the national title game,” writes McCartney. There’s still a ton of football to be played, though.

Tom Cable won his last two games at Idaho in 2003. It was the 9-35 record up to that point that got him fired. Since then Cable has gone to UCLA as offensive coordinator and to the Atlanta Falcons and, now, the Oakland Raiders as offensive line coach. And it is with the O-line that Cable is in his element. He even gets some pub in Sports Illustrated this week, where Jim Trotter writes, “The most impressive coaching job of the early season is that of Oakland offensive line coach Tom Cable, whose zone-blocking scheme has the Raiders averaging a league-best 194.2 rushing yards per game.” They were 29th in the league in rushing last year under former coach Art Shell’s staff. Oakland is 2-2 and coming off a bye week, with a road game this Sunday against the Chargers.

Now that 2007 is complete for all former Boise Hawks in the majors, let’s look at the guy who had the best season of all. That would be John Lackey, who’s become the Angels’ ace. The 6-6 righthander flirted with a 20-win season, going 19-9 with a 3.01 ERA, the best in the American League this year among starters. His season ended with the 4-0 loss to the Red Sox in Game 1 of the ALDS last Wednesday at Fenway Park. Lackey turns 29 in two weeks, so he’s just heading into what should be the prime of his career. Hard to believe it’s been almost five years since Lackey became the first rookie in 93 years to win a Game 7 in the World Series.

This Day In Sports…October 9, 1989:

The San Francisco Giants win their first pennant in 27 years, ending Chicago’s latest World Series dream by beating the Cubs in the National League Championship Series. Will Clark hit .650 in the NLCS to win MVP honors, leading the Giants into a what would be an earthquake-interrupted Bay Bridge Series against the Oakland A’s.

(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 1350 KTIK/The Ticket. He also handles color commentary on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football.)

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