Boise is Not a State

I hate Boise State.

Having said that, do you think Boise State tires of creating a masterpiece every single time they play on primetime? It is getting sort of eerie how the Broncos consistently play (and win) in every year’s ESPN Instant Classic. Last night was no exception, some thoughts from the game:

Uniforms- Both teams debuted new uniforms last night. Brilliant move by ESPN. It gave the game a bit of mystery, kind of kept viewers on their toes wondering, “Is this Arena Football? Is this women’s lacrosse? Am I watching a video game?”

You know how when you use the “Create a Team” feature on NCAA Football 2010 and you create everything down to the finest detail but it never looks quite right? Your team always looks a bit too cartoony. That’s how I felt watching the game last night. It was like some kid won an X-Box Live tournament and the prize was designing uniforms for the BSU/Va Tech game.

Kirk Herbsreit did not share my view as he was salivating over all those young, fit college athletes. Did anyone else feel uncomfortable when his excitement boiled over and he breathlessly uttered, “David Wilson can make any uniform look good.”

Take it easy there, Kirk.

Trick Plays- I love how the media still tries to trot out the old “Boise State is just a gimmick team” routine. The only trick play last night was Virginia Tech’s first play of the game. So now Big Conference schools are pulling out all the stops to beat BSU, instead of the other way around. Face it Big Conference apologists, Boise State beats your teams at your own style of play. Boise is not an upstart, they’re just better than you.

Strength of Schedule- Here we go. Stupid Boise. Why did they have to win that game? Now we have to spend the rest of the season listening to how weak their schedule is. I’m sure we will hear things like “Sure, Boise State can win one big game, but how would they like to play Florida, then Alabama, then Texas, then Oklahoma? That’s what big schools have to do.”

First of all, no they don’t. Say what you want but for every big time Florida/LSU game there are a couple of Florida/Tennessee type games in the mix. This idea that the big time contenders are playing tougher teams week in and week out is always spoken as if it is a given, when in reality it is probably the most exaggerated fallacy in all of sports. Just because a mediocre team is in a conference the media has decided is better than others, does not mean they are by default better than the mediocre teams in every other conference.

Secondly, given the chance Boise State would be licking their chops at the chance to play VTU, Alabama and Florida back to back to back. Believe it or not, Boise wants to be the best. If beating everyone is what it takes they want to do it. Do you know who doesn’t want to play Boise State this early in the season? VTU, Alabama and Florida. Those teams can avoid Boise and let big brother BCS fight their battles for them.

Screw the media. Boise has a tough schedule and they have a target on their backs all season every season. Every conference game for them is just as tough as every conference game for Alabama. Boise is the team that every team in the WAC plays their best game against.

Congratulations to Boise for beating Virginia Tech on the road in front of 90,000 people. Degratulations (new word) to the media for planning to spend the next 12 weeks making excuses for the BCS conferences and explaining away Boise State’s dominance.

In other news, I don’t want to say much about this because I don’t want to jinx it…but dare I say the Utah State Aggies were the most impressive football team from the state of Utah this weekend? Putting up 422 offensive yards against Oklahoma in Norman is no small task. Please don’t get my hopes up, Aggies.

Who am I kidding? My hopes are sky high!