Wednesday, June 10, 2009.

Idaho State's thin tight end corps has received a boost from a thick one. Boise State walk-on tight end Josh Hill is transferring to ISU, where he'll have a chance to play. The Broncos are deep at that spot, with Richie Brockel, Tommy Gallarda, Kyle Efaw, Chandler Koch and Sean King. Hill's move will soon be a footnote to the 2009 season. But he's a good player and could very well strike it big with the Bengals. It just magnifies the Broncos' luxury of depth. They've been well-stocked at the tight end spot for most of the new century.

Which brings up another position. Here's BSU doing without three of its top four wide receivers from last season, Jeremy Childs, Vinny Perretta and Julian Hawkins (all in NFL camps now), and the Broncos are still sifting through a healthy depth chart. It seems a lock that Kirby Moore will play as a true freshman this season. After all, he's a Pac-10 recruit who stands 6-3, he's the national high school career leader in touchdown receptions, and he's Kellen Moore's brother. Why wouldn't Kirby be given three years to catch passes from Kellen? But Kirby's going to have to earn a spot in fall camp as he goes against Austin Pettis, Titus Young, Tyler Shoemaker, Mitch Burroughs, Chris Potter and Michael Choate.

Footnotes to the footnote: Hill will be closer to home now--he hails from Blackfoot High, which he helped to a state 4A championship in 2007. Since he's moving from an FBS school to an FCS institution, Hill will have four years of eligibility remaining, beginning this season. BSU still has a former Blackfoot Bronco making noise as a walk-on, though, as linebacker J.C. Percy is coming off a solid spring.

Good news-bad news for the Idaho Steelheads 2009-10 schedule. The good news: 22 of the Steelheads' 36 home games will be on Friday and Saturday nights. Those are money (and fun). The bad news: there are no inter-conference games with teams from back East. That's entirely understandable, as the economy makes those a bit irresponsible. But with Phoenix having disappeared from the West Division and Fresno gone from the Pacific, all 72 Steelies games are divvied up between seven teams. The upside of that situation is more games versus Alaska--the Aces come to Qwest Arena three times next season, including twice in December.

This is kind of interesting. A friend with Bay Area roots similar to mine e-mailed me a San Francisco Chronicle story about Cal outfielder Brett Jackson, a high draft projection who went to the same high school I did, Miramonte in Orinda, CA (uh, that was before I finished at Boise High). Anyway, I e-mailed back and said, "Hey, the Cubs have the No. 31 pick in the first round--maybe they'll choose Jackson and send him to Boise." Lo and behold, the Cubs selected Jackson yesterday. We'll see if he has a ticket to Memorial Stadium.

Jackson is drawing favorable comparisons to a couple other Cubs first rounders who came through Boise. "Jackson has five-tool ability and might be the best hitting prospect in the system after Josh Vitters (as soon as he signs)," says Baseball America. "Of course, he also could be another Tyler Colvin. But at No. 31, the Cubs get solid value, considering the fact that Jackson was projected to go top-half of the first round earlier this season." Not sure what they mean by that Tyler Colvin comment. Colvin is bouncing back nicely from Tommy John surgery in the offseason, and some say he could be in a Cubs uniform by the end of the season.

The second Ironman 70.3 Boise is set for Saturday, with the 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike and 13.1-mile half-marathon taking athletes from the chilly waters of Barclay Bay at Lucky Peak to the Greenbelt, and eventually to the finish line at BoDo. The inaugural Boise event in 2008 drew more than 1200 athletes from 42 states and U.S. territories and 10 countries. Early estimates from the Ironman 70.3 people pegged this year's entries at 2,000.

All four of the Boise State athletes entered in the NCAA Track & Field Championships will get going on Day One in Fayetteville, AR. Simon Grinnell has preliminaries in two events today, the long jump and high jump. Grinnell's best chance at hardware is in the triple jump, where he is the fourth-ranked competitor in the field. The triple jump prelims aren't until Friday. Simon Wardhaugh competes in the hammer--he's the sixth-ranked thrower at the meet. Pontus Thomee, the seventh-ranked javelin thrower in the field, also makes his debut today, as does women's javelin at-large entry Sasa Kampic. Meanwhile, Eagle's James Rogan will throw the hammer at the NCAA's today for Idaho.

How about the ignominy of Tim Floyd's sudden departure as USC basketball coach? The former Idaho head man resigned yesterday in the wake of the O.J. Mayo illegal recruiting scandal. Floyd is accused of giving $1000 to a go-between to get Mayo to commit to the Trojans. Mayo, of course, played only one year for USC before bolting to the NBA. Floyd is 328-180 as a college head coach, starting with the Vandals in 1986.

This Day In Sports...June 10, 1978:

In the Belmont Stakes, Affirmed and Alydar are neck-and-neck again. Affirmed had defeated his worthy rival by 1½ lengths in the Kentucky Derby, but only by a neck at the Preakness. In the Belmont, the two were dead even with 1/16 of a mile to go, when jockey Steve Cauthen asked Affirmed for more--and he moved ahead to win by a nose, making him horse racing's 11th Triple Crown winner. There has been none since.

(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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