Reply #37: Boise State is simply a monster program [View All]

As someone who uses stats as a guideline I marvel at their numbers every year. They never fail to destroy the norm and the expectation several times per year, and generally in the highest profile tests. This season was no different. Georgia had an excellent pass defense that held 7 opponents to 50% completions or less, gave up only 5.7 yards per attempt and 50% overall, with only one team managing higher than 57.6% completions.

That team was Boise State, with 28 of 34 for 82.4%. I was almost mesmerized by Boise State's pass routes and sophistication in that game, watching the schemes over and again on tape. It was definitely the best prepared and best coached team I saw for any one game all season, and not by a minor amount.

It was very mindful of 2009, when Boise State mangled TCU's running game in the Fiesta Bowl. From my Excel spreadsheet, these were TCU's rushing stats that season:

vs. Virginia -- 203 yards
vs. SW Texas St. -- 286 yards
vs. Clemson -- 162 yards
vs. SMU -- 229 yards
vs. Air Force -- 195 yards
vs. Colorado State -- 275 yards
vs. BYU -- 127 yards
vs. UNLV -- 390 yards
vs. San Diego State -- 312 yards
vs. Utah -- 342 yards
vs. Wyoming -- 339 yards
vs. New Mexico -- 202 yards

And in the Fiesta Bowl:

vs. Boise State -- 36 yards

I remember it well because the pointspread of Boise State +7.5 points was outrageous by any statistical measure, the wrong team favored. That was the same 2009 Boise State team that held Oregon to 31 yards rushing in the opener. Oregon's second lowest output of the year 175 yards. Overall they finished 4th nationally at 5.51 yards per rush and 231 yards per game.

In two subsequent years Boise State has been excluded from BCS bowls, despite an effort like that the last time they were invited, and the Oklahoma game years earlier. In that season, even in the wide open Big 12, Oklahoma's final eight regular season opponents scored: 9, 3, 10, 16, 24, 10, 21, 7. Boise State's tally was 43.

There's no use making sense of it because every anti-Boise rationale is invalid. But as long as the bar stool crowd embraces empty phrases like strength of schedule their ignorance will happily trot along.