Looks like I missed all the excitement from what turned out to be the best game of Monday. Sounds like it was an incredible game. And here is that amazing - "Statue of liberty" - play, which I am sure we are going to see again and again in coming years:
That was via EDSBS, which also has this game wrapup.
Now allow us to offer up some thoughts from a blue and gold pov.
Now, honestly, I am not all that surprised Boise State won. Those of us who follow college football religiously (as Hornsfan notes on BON) knew Boise State is a great football program. And it was not much of an upset that the number 9 ranked team upset the number 7 team in a BCS bowl game. Thankfully Stewart Mandel on CNNSI is already posing the question, which Hornsfan is exhorting all the analysts to ask, "Should Boise State have an opportunity to play Ohio State?" Here is Mandel today:
You're going to hear it a lot in the coming weeks. If Boise State can beat Oklahoma, why shouldn't it get a shot at Ohio State? And while the BCS commissioners can offer any number of general arguments against a playoff, the fact is there is no reasonable answer to that specific question.
No, this was not the greatest of Oklahoma teams the Broncos beat -- but it was a pretty darn good one. Certainly a more worthy adversary than the Pittsburgh team Utah routed in a less memorable Fiesta Bowl two years earlier. Meanwhile, in the Rose Bowl, USC throttled a Michigan team that plenty of people deemed worthy of a national-title shot. The Trojans lost two games this season, one of them to Oregon State. Boise beat those guys 42-14.
I'm sure there will be plenty of people arguing this week that if Florida upsets Ohio State, the Broncos, as the nation's lone remaining undefeated team, should be voted No. 1. I'm not ready to go that far, but anyone who watched Monday night's thriller would have a hard time arguing that Boise State isn't a legitimate, big-time team. We saw a physical Broncos defense bottle up former Heisman runner-up Adrian Peterson and pick off Sooners QB Paul Thompson three times. We saw the ultra-talented Johnson rush for 100 yards.
Now, as Mandel goes on to say, the undisputed star from the Fiesta Bowl is none other than BSU head coach Chris Peterson. Bruins fans are wondering today, if Peterson can put together that kind of season and performance, with a group of Pac-10 rejects, then why in the world do we have to accept the 6 loss BS seasons which have become the hallmark of Dorrell's below-average tenure in Westwood?No, this was not the greatest of Oklahoma teams the Broncos beat -- but it was a pretty darn good one. Certainly a more worthy adversary than the Pittsburgh team Utah routed in a less memorable Fiesta Bowl two years earlier. Meanwhile, in the Rose Bowl, USC throttled a Michigan team that plenty of people deemed worthy of a national-title shot. The Trojans lost two games this season, one of them to Oregon State. Boise beat those guys 42-14.
I'm sure there will be plenty of people arguing this week that if Florida upsets Ohio State, the Broncos, as the nation's lone remaining undefeated team, should be voted No. 1. I'm not ready to go that far, but anyone who watched Monday night's thriller would have a hard time arguing that Boise State isn't a legitimate, big-time team. We saw a physical Broncos defense bottle up former Heisman runner-up Adrian Peterson and pick off Sooners QB Paul Thompson three times. We saw the ultra-talented Johnson rush for 100 yards.
Of course, there are some morons (again Dorrell supporters disguised as UCLA fans) putting up predictable, mocking - "Fire Bob Stoops" - idiotic one liners around Bruin message boards, justifying the tenure of their beloved mediocre coach. Basically, they are advancing a classic asinine argument that calling for Dorrell's firing after a loss in a bowl game is just as pointless as calling for Stoops' firing after his loss in the Fiesta Bowl.
What these disingenuous, insincere, blowhards spamming the message boards are obviously ignoring is Stoops overall body of work, which includes a record of 86-19, 6 seasons of 11 or more wins, 3 New Year's Day Bowl wins, and 1 National Championship. Yeah, Dorrell had a win over Stoops' team in 2005 (when it was in a rebuilding mode), but obviously, looking at Dorrell's body of work, the Southern Cal game has turned out to be nothing but yet another one of those Lavin-like "turning the corner" bullshit wins.
So, once again, if you are actually a knowledgable Bruin football fan (with a pulse on what is going across the nation), you couldn't help but feel cheated for being stuck with a coach like KD.
Stoops, despite losing his starting QB and his superstar Heisman contending RB, took his team to a BCS game. Carr, despite all his shortcomings as an imaginative D-1 head coach, took his team to yet another Rose Bowl. And then there was Pom Pom across town playing to win. Going for the throat and finishing off yet another opponent when he got the chance. You just have to respect that.
Anyways, the main germane point to take away from last night's Boise State win over the Sooners is pretty simple for the Bruins Nation.
It all comes down to coooooooooaching. From Washington Husky Athletics blog (emphasis ours):
First of all we schedule Boise because they have the best program currently in the Northwest. Boise will never be able to outrecruit, or even compete for a single Pac Ten player in the near future. Only five current players on their roster come from Washington. 45 players come from California, and the rest come from the Rockies, and Canada. What Boise has done is built a program the right way through evaluation, and development. They have taken the players who were just a little too small, just not quick enough, and turned them into a unit that could compete with anyone in the country this year. That my friends is coaching, and it is achievable at any level.
Yeap, it's that simple.BSU (along with other current credible/relevant programs in college football) has a competent football coach. UCLA doesn't. It's not all that complicated. Hopefully, Guerrero was paying attention last night or watching the clips (or, better yet, the game) today.
GO BRUINS.