Thoughts From The Valley: A Compelling Case For Boise State

The Hangover

HOW I AM FEELING: Worn down. A little sore. And a tad beat up. The reasons? Well, there are a few. Worn down because have been spending an inordinate amount of time writing about college football of late. Sore because I’ve started running again (exercise = means of maintaining sanity during college football season). And beat up because, well, I walked into a door on Saturday evening. Yes. That's right. See, I was barbequing up some pork ribs, and kept running between the kitchen and deck to get supplies and such, and on about the 75th trip, I forget the door was shut, not open (as I had left it most of evening) and, well, walked right into it. Face first. My nose hurts. But here’s the good news: My Beloved Penn State Nittany Lions didn’t lose this weekend (bye week!) and the football on Saturday was generally excellent.

WHAT I AM DRINKING: Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA. A recent discovery. Big fan.

WHAT I AM LISTENING TO: Well, I was listening (most of this week, at least) to the latest 885 songs countdown—the 885 Ultimate Road Trip Songs—from WXPN-FM, greatest radio station in the world, located right here in The Beautiful Wissahickon Valley. It was a tremendous countdown. It really was ... right up until the last three songs. Because those last three songs included two truly tragic selections: Golden Earring’s  awful “Radar Love” (No. 3) and Steppenwolf’s meathead-ish “Born To Be Wild” (No. 1). Better luck next year, ‘XPN.

VILLA UPDATE: You know it’s bad for Your Editor, folks, when I have been reduced to being thrilled by ties. But this weekend, well, I was thrilled by a tie. Because Aston Villa, Official Barclay’s Premier League Club Of TCFA, played mighty Chelsea (greatest club in the world, probably) to a scoreless draw at Villa Park. Yes, I watched the entire thing, and, yes, this means that from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. or so I was not watching college football. But, no, I don’t guilty about this, because the noon games were really awful. Pitt-Syracuse wasn’t exactly doing it for me.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE WEEKEND

You can read more of my thoughts about The Awesomeness Of Boise State both later in this colum and over at My Other Site.

But at the risk of overkill, folks, I just wanted to share a couple quick points here.

1. Boise State is the best team in the nation.

2. Here’s why:

vs. Idaho State (W) 49-7

vs. Bowling Green (W) 20-7

vs. No. 17 Oregon (W) 37-32

vs. Louisiana Tech (W) 38-3

vs. Southern Miss (W) 24-7

vs. Hawaii (W) 27-7

vs. San Jose State (W) 33-16

vs. New Mexico State (W) 49-0

vs. Utah State (W) 49-14

vs. Idaho (W) 45-10

vs. Nevada (W) 41-34

vs. Fresno State (W) 61-10

vs. No. 11 TCU (L) 17-16

vs. No. 14 Oregon (W) 19–8      

vs. Miami (OH)  (W) 48–0        

vs. Fresno State (W) 51–34

vs. Bowling Green (W) 19–14

vs. UC Davis (W) 34–16      

vs. Tulsa (W)  28–21        

vs. Hawaii W 54–9      

vs. San José State (W) 45–7        

vs. Louisiana Tech (W) 45–35      

vs. Idaho ESPNU (W) 63–25      

vs. Utah State (W) 52–21 

vs. Nevada (W) 44–33        

vs. New Mexico State (W) 42–7      

vs. No. 3 TCU (W) 17–10      

vs. No. 10 Virginia Tech (W) 33-30

vs. Wyoming (W) 51-6

vs. No. 4 Oregon State (W) 37-24

vs. New Mexico State (W) 59-0

vs. Toledo (W) 57-14

vs. San Jose State (W) 48-0

In case you were wondering, that was a complete list of Boise State’s results for the past three seasons.

The loss (singular) is highlighted in yellow.

Read this. Respect this.

Then tell me that this team doesn't "deserve" to play for the national title.

THREE YARDS AND A CLOUD OF DUST

THREE: Minnesota fired Tim Brewster on Sunday. This was hardly a surprise, of course. The Gophers were 1-6. They hadn’t beaten anybody of note. And, in the big picture, they really hadn’t made any progress during Brewster’s mostly disastrous tenure. Still, I wonder why this needed to happen in the middle of the season (rather classless, Minnesota). Explained athletic director Joel Maturi (you know, the guy who hired Brewster): “We have high aspirations for our football program and we are not satisfied with its current direction. The results so far this season have been unacceptable and the program has simply not shown enough improvement over the past three and a half years to continue with the status quo." Entertaining note: Already, completely delusional Minnesota fns are mentioning Tony Dungy as a candidate to take over for Brewster. For more discussion about irrationally in the realm of college football coaching possibilities, please check out Episode 8 of the TCFA Podcast.

TWO: So maybe I jumped the gun (just a bit) when I proclaimed Denard Robinson, aka The Fastest Player In Big Ten History, to be “possibly the greatest player we’ve seen in the past 40 years of college football (TCFA Podcast, Episode 7)." 'Cause after throwing three costly picks in Michigan’s humbling loss to The New And Improved Sparty last weekend, Robinson was again average-at-best in the Wolverines’ completely predictable 38-28 loss to Iowa this weekend. His line? 13 of 18 passing, 96 yards, 1 touchdown, 1 interception. Yes, he ran for 104 yards. But he really didn’t do any damage. And he got hurt, too. Suffice to say, his Suzuki Heisman Trophy campaign is in dire straits.

ONE: In their stunning-but-not-really-all-that-stunning-if-you’ve-been-paying-attention upset of Florida (at The Swamp) on Saturday night, Mississippi State ran a total of 30 offensive plays in the second half. Twenty-nine of them were runs. Lesson? This: Florida is awful.

TOUCHDOWN: Over the past two weekends, we’ve seen three college football powerhouses + bluebloods + national title contenders lose. And lose badly. Alabama got muscled around by South Carolina. Nebraska got throttled by Texas (the game was not as close as the score). Ohio State got blitzed by Wisconsin. And though, even with these losses, we are left with a handful of other big-conference undefeateds (LSU, Auburn, Michigan State, Oregon) I am going to go ahead and pronounce, right now, that Boise State will play for, and win, the 2010 national championship. Simply put, there’s not a more confident or more complete team in the nation. This team has beaten their last three opponents by a combined score 164-14. They rank third in the nation in scoring offense. They rank third in the nation in scoring defense. They are a machine. And they are about three months away from shaking the BCS to its very core. That's a promise from me, Your Editor, the only person on Earth who picked Illinois to beat Penn State by two touchdowns.

OVERTIME: Listen to the podcast? Enjoy the podcast? Have feedback you want to share about the podcast? Well, please drop us a note at podcasts@intelligentcollegefootball.com. Do so, and you just might get a shout-out on our next show.

For more searing college football insight, please check out my work over at About.com, where you can read my weekly Power Rankings, ponder the About.com Heisman Trophy Watch, get darn-near daily blog updates and more.