Tuesday, October 27, 2009.

Now that the TCU trampoline has jumped Boise State so swiftly and suddenly, Matt Hayes of the Sporting News Daily online edition presents another aggravating possibility for more than just Bronco faithful. "Somewhere in the hallowed halls of Congress they're waiting for this," writes Hayes. "They want it--they need it: If Oregon beats USC this weekend, the Ducks, in all likelihood, will jump Boise State in the BCS poll. The same Boise State team that held Oregon without a first down into the third quarter of an ugly loss. It's just the juice the folks in Washington are looking for to ramp up the rhetoric against college football's postseason. As if Boise State's fall from No.4 to No.7 in this week's BCS poll--after a 54-9 victory at Hawaii--isn't enough. Off the field, that impressive victory over Oregon in the season opener looks smaller with each passing week."

BCS expert Jerry Palm was on Idaho SportsTalk yesterday and was asked about the possibility of two non-BCS schools being selected for BCS bowls for the first time. "Slim and none" was the essence of his reply. Palm cited TV ratings for those outside the BCS, intimating that BCS bowls aren't going to take a chance on spotty viewership in two of their games. The BSU-TCU matchup in the Poinsettia Bowl last December drew strong ratings, but they weren't BCS level. Meanwhile, by virtue of TCU passing the Broncos in the BCS standings, BSU is now out of most BCS bowl projections. SI.com's Stewart Mandel has, for example, TCU against Florida in the Sugar Bowl. And in the Fiesta? Cincinnati...versus Oregon.

"I'm not Mack Brown, and this isn't Texas," said Chris Petersen at his press conference yesterday. Petersen was asked if he'd try to make a case for his team after its stunning drop of three spots in the BCS standings. He repeatedly said it's not worth a conversation for at least five more weeks. Petersen would much rather spend his time lobbying his centers on the importance of clean snaps to Kellen Moore. In Game 7, the Broncos reached a new low on their most pressing issue in the 54-9 win at Hawaii Saturday night, fumbling six times on the center-quarterback exchange. Priorities, priorities.

Boise State has tripled its number of WAC Players of the Week with the naming of Jeron Johnson on defense and Kyle Brotzman on special teams yesterday. Numbers are important in garnering these honors, and both players had them. Johnson had two interceptions and recovered a fumble at Hawaii, and Brotzman kicked four field goals and completed a 28-yard pass to Jason Robinson on a fake punt. Brotzman also covered 72 yards on his only actual punt of the night, the second-longest boot of his career.

The watch list is out for the 2009 Paul "Bear" Bryant College Football Coach of the Year Award, and Petersen is on it again. He is one of 20 Division FBS coaches making the cut, giving him a shot to win the honor for the second time. Petersen took the Bryant Award for the 2006 season, when the Broncos went undefeated and won the Fiesta Bowl. Idaho's Robb Akey is also on the list, having lifted the Vandals to a 6-2 record. Meanwhile, Kellen Moore has been tabbed as one of 15 semifinalists for the 2009 Davey O'Brien Award, the most prestigious of the annual college football quarterback awards. Moore threw a career-high five touchdowns at Hawaii and continues to lead the nation in pass efficiency with a rating of 172.2.

Hawaii's freefall from its Sugar Bowl season of just two years ago is amazing. The Warriors have now lost five in a row and have started the WAC season 0-4 for the first time since 1998, when they went 0-12 the year before coach June Jones arrived. Many in the Islands think recruiting is the culprit, surmising that Jones did little to solidify the 2008 class in the month preceding the Sugar Bowl, because he already knew he was going to depart to SMU. The talent is certainly not what it was when UH put together its undefeated regular season in 2007. There is a reality over there that can't be denied, though: Hawaii is still Hawaii. I saw this in the Honolulu Weekly last week. "When the Warriors are doing well, the entire state of Hawaii is having a good day. And when they aren't, well, we're still having a pretty good day then, too."

Yes, of course, I did overdo the Matt Kaiserman/Brock Forsey comparisons Saturday night. I knew it at the time. But all the ingredients were there. Kaiserman is a valley guy, has similar size, uses that same north-south forward lean and leg push, has the sidestep move, and break tackles. And Kaiserman finished his feature drive by doing something Forsey did 68 times in his career--scoring a touchdown. But I pledge to back off on that. The remarkable thing about Kaiserman's 122-yard night is that it didn't come after any late-game mop-up cameos leading into it. He just did everything from scratch at Aloha Stadium after not having played a football game since 2006, when he was Idaho's Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior at Skyview High.

Getting that seventh (and even eighth) win becomes more crucial now for Idaho after the 70-45 loss at Nevada Saturday. If the WAC has only three bowl spots available instead of four now that TCU has leapfrogged Boise State in the BCS standings, the Wolf Pack just took a major step in securing the second one. The third would be up for grabs between the Vandals and Fresno State, which visits the Kibbie Dome a week from Saturday. First things first for Idaho: a recovery from a day that saw its defense yield 662 yards and 70 points, the most scored by Nevada in 32 years. A struggling Louisiana Tech team may be just the tonic this Saturday in Moscow.

Names with which Idaho Steelheads fans are quickly familiarizing themselves: Ashton Rome and Brendan Milnamow. The Steelheads are off to a 5-0 start this season, and Rome and Milnamow were mighty contributors in the sweep at Utah over the weekend. Rome, the refugee from the now-defunct Phoenix Roadrunners, scored the game-winning goal in each contest. And Milnamow, the rookie out of Union College, picked up his first two goals as a professional in Saturday night's 5-3 win. Now the lasting power of this winning streak will be tested, as the Steelies go to the Frozen North for a three-game series with the Alaska Aces this weekend.

After years of a couple of Shields brothers dominating the headlines for Boise State tennis, make way for Vicente Joli. The senior from Spain completed an impressive run at the ITA Mountain Region Championships by winning the singles title Sunday with a straight set victory over Phillip Eilers of Utah. Joli began the week as the No. 12 seed and had to win six matches to capture the crown, which earns him a berth at the National Individual Indoor Championships in New Haven, CT, next week. Coach Greg Patton calls Joli "Pops" and calls his serve a "sonic boom." File that away.

This Day In Sports...October 27, 2004, five years ago today:

The Curse of the Bambino ends convincingly, as the Boston Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918 with a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals. This was on the heels of one of the greatest accomplishments in sports--the rally by the Red Sox from a three-games-to-none deficit to the Yankees in the American League Championship Series.

(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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