Wednesday, July 2, 2008.

According to a website called The Wizard of Odds, the first set of odds has been posted for Week 1 of college football, which is rife with matchups between Division I-A and I-AA teams (you might have to give me another year to call 'em the FBS and FCS). The biggest spread is Chattanooga-Oklahoma at 47½ points. Next? Idaho State a 44½-point underdog at Boise State. That compares this way with two other Big Sky schools playing up that week: Texas Tech is favored by 33 over Eastern Washington and Arizona State by 31½ over Northern Arizona. At the other end of the spectrum is Duke, picked to beat James Madison by just two points.

Yesterday we marveled at the fact that Boise State already had six commitments for its 2009 football recruiting class. Make that seven, according to Scout.com. Tight end Trevor Peterson has reportedly given his verbal, choosing BSU over San Diego State, Utah, UC Davis and Harvard. Harvard? At 6-4, 220 pounds, Peterson will need to put on pounds, but his smarts are apparently just fine. He told Scout.com he's considering graduating early from El Dorado High in Placerville, CA, this winter so he can be in Boise for spring football.

A headline at USA Today.com last night said, "Men's 800 finish is talk of Eugene." It's the talk of Boise, too, after native son Nick Symmonds went from last to a runaway first Monday night to punch his ticket to Beijing. Symmonds was on Idaho SportsTalk yesterday after running the second-fastest 800 meters ever on American soil. "I guarantee you--even if I'm hanging in last, I have confidence that my kick will win the race," said Symmonds. "I like to be patient the first 600 meters, then crank it the final 200. But I'm going to have to find another gear if I'm going to be an Olympic gold medalist." Symmonds took the day off yesterday and resumes training today (he says he didn't get any sleep Monday night after the victory).

Attendance is off to a good start for the Boise Hawks--up from last year at 3,164 per game over the first eight games. There's been discussion the past couple of weeks of Boise as a Triple-A town. That would be the only possible step up, as there are no Double-A leagues in the West. Hawks general manager Todd Rahr says, "Triple-A could be supported very well," and uses Reno as an example. The Biggest Little City to our south is getting Triple-A baseball (and a brand new downtown ballpark) next year, picking up the Tucson franchise in the Pacific Coast League. Did I mention brand new stadium? Rahr feels that would make the difference. "Sacramento didn't do so well with Single-A in an old dilapidated stadium, but the RiverCats draw extremely well in the new ballpark there."

It's fashionable to point to the weather as a reason a Triple-A team would not be viable in Boise. The 144-game schedule at that level mandates that the season begins the first week of April. Hey, it could rain. It could even snow. The wind could blow. It could be 45 degrees. But let's be real about the weather argument. 1) This spring was way out of whack. 2) So Boise's weather is worse than all those Double-A and Triple-A cities in the Midwest? The weather wouldn't be that much of an obstacle. It'll come down to one thing: 72 home games is a lotta-lotta-lotta baseball. And a franchise has to sell a lotta-lotta-lotta tickets.

I will say this: Triple-A would do better in Boise than it's going to in Reno. We'll find out soon enough what the minor league landscape is like down there (we'll give them a pass on baseball's independent Reno Silver Sox). The city's yet-to-be-named D-League franchise will begin play in November, competing for fans with popular Wolf Pack hoops. Reno's been trying to get minor league hockey back for years since its WCHL franchise folded. The ECHL has again granted Reno a a one-year extension to its "Home Arena Pending" as the hockey ownership group continues its work toward an arena project.

A 5-3 victory would indicate an above-average night by the winning team's pitching staff. But that score in last night's Boise win over Tri-City belies the performance of the Hawks hurlers in the game. The Hawks struck out 18 Dust Devils, highlighted by Casey Coleman's seven strikeouts in three innings of relief, earning him his first professional victory. John Muller, who notched his fourth save of the season, rang up five K's; Mike Perconte had five. Boise got all its offense in a five-run fourth inning that produced a double-steal, Josh Harrison's RBI double, and Ryan Flaherty's two-run triple. The three-game series wraps up tonight.

We found out two things from the Idaho Steelheads yesterday: who they really want back, and who they really don't want playing for anyone else in the ECHL. The Steelheads have extended qualifying offers to seven players for next season. Two of the offers went to Taggart Desmet, who's set to play overseas, and Greg Rallo, who's signed with the AHL's Manitoba Moose. If either decides to return to the ECHL, the Steelies would have their rights. The other five are Kellen Briggs, Craig Cescon, Mike Sullivan, Brent Shepheard and Mark Bomersback, all of whom coach Derek Laxdal expects to return.

This Day In Sports...July 2, 1963:

San Francisco's Willie Mays hits a home run in the 16th inning to break up an incredible scoreless pitchers' duel between future Hall of Famers Juan Marichal of the Giants and Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves. I'd call that a quality start by both Marichal and Spahn, as major league clubs are happy to get six innings out of a starter today.

(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.)

---