Wednesday, July 8, 2009.

As we dip deeper into July, the college football news starts ramping up. Now we have odds on 2009 games. The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas has identified 130 "key games" for the season. Nobody inside the Bronco Football Complex wants to hear this, but here goes. Boise State is favored by four points over Oregon in the opener on this list. We could chew on that one for awhile by itself, but we move on. The Golden Nugget has BSU by 10½ at Fresno State, by six at Tulsa, and by 17 at Hawaii. The Broncos will have to look elsewhere for chip-on-the-shoulder material. There's a handful of other WAC games listed. Nevada is a 17-point underdog at Notre Dame and a five-point 'dog versus Missouri. (What--no BSU-Nevada among the top 130 games?)

ESPN.com's Pat Forde runs down his top 10 "Red-Hot College Football Rivalries," and a Boise State game is included in one of seven honorable mentions. Not against the team that would naturally roll off the tongue, but Hawaii. Forde notes, "The Broncos have won 25 of their last 26 Western Athletic Conference games. The lone loss: to the Warriors in 2007, the rare occasion when two WAC teams were ranked." I'd actually rate the BSU game at Fresno State on September 18 above the trip to Aloha Stadium on the rivalry scale, despite the Broncos' dominance of the Bulldogs.

The BCS has already rejected the Mountain West Conference's proposal for reform, but Congress isn't letting the issue go. The second Senate hearing on the bowl system unfolded yesterday. And here's Senator Orrin Hatch asking the Justice Department to investigate the BCS over anti-trust laws. The only thing this is going to do is raise the ire of people across the country who rightfully recognize that lawmakers should be spending their time on more pressing matters. And there are hundreds of them these days. Meanwhile, as unfair as it seems, here's hoping the WAC and Mountain West sign the new BCS agreement by tomorrow's deadline. There aren't enough people who'll rally around them if they don't--the leagues just don't have leverage.

After the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, Chris Petersen did not take the bait--and did not cry out for a playoff in FBS football. He and fellow former UC Davis assistant Gary Patterson, the TCU coach whose Horned Frogs beat the Broncos in the Poinsettia Bowl last December, might be of like mind. "Obviously, a true playoff gives you a national champion," Patterson told the Sporting News Today online edition.

"But my answer has always been it's for the kids. And bowl games are for the kids. If you're in the playoff, you spend all week at your place, and if you get beat, you're done. You never experience a new place; you never see new things. I have a tendency to stick with the bowls." Patterson's simple contention is this: "We need to have an automatic berth. I don't think that's asking too much, to be honest. Or even if we have a playoff between the two highest-ranked teams to see who will earn a spot (in a BCS bowl)."

Unlike the first two years in Boise Burn history, there's an overload of players in the "who's hot" category in the stretch run of the season. We'll narrow it down to two today as the Burn prepare to host the Tri-Cities Fever Saturday night. Nichiren Flowers, the former Nevada star, leads af2 with 15½ yards per reception and has scored on 22 of his 48 catches this season. And then there's former Boise State standout Alex Guerrero. He's third in af2 with 12 tackles-for-loss and is just one short of the franchise's single-season record, set last season by Mark Weivoda. Not to mention Guerrero's three rushing touchdowns.

The Boise Hawks gave three-in-a-row another try last night, but all they got was another kind of a three. The Hawks were shut out for the third time this season, falling to Eugene 6-0, as their record dropped to 5-13. Boise starter Tarlandus Mitchell left with two outs in the fourth inning without having allowed a hit--then reliever Joe Simokaitis served up solo home runs to the next two Emeralds batters. The Hawks only managed four hits, two of them not coming until the ninth inning. Boise and Eugene wrap up their five-game series tonight at Memorial Stadium.

Okay, I promise--here's the last reference to this week's issue of the Sporting News. (It just happened to have a lot of good stuff.) Former Boise Hawk Josh Vitters is one of nine players on SN's midseason minor league all-star team. Vitters, still only 19 years old, is compared to the Mets' David Wright ("hits for average and to all fields with power"). The third overall pick in the 2007 Major League Draft is projected by the magazine to be in a Cubs uniform two years from now. Vitters played the past two seasons in Boise. In 2007, it was a late-season cameo that saw him hit only .190. But last year he had a huge summer, batting .328 with 37 runs batted in. After batting .316 with 15 homers for Peoria this season, Vitters has been promoted to Daytona of the Florida State League.

This Day In Sports...July 8, 1984, 25 years ago today:

The British press and fans call him "the Brat" and "McNasty", but in this case the only ill will on the part of John McEnroe is toward Wimbledon finals opponent Jimmy Connors. In the most one-sided men's final in 46 years, McEnroe dismantles Connors in just 80 minutes, 6-1, 6-1, 6-2. It was McNasty's third Wimbledon men's title in four years.

(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.)

---