USU football: BCS not Boise State focus

There simply can be no denying the greatness of Boise State.

The Broncos haven't been beaten this season. Save for the matchup against Oregon, many of their games could've been stopped after three quarters. They have the envy of every coach in the Western Athletic Conference, and they are a prime candidate to crack the Bowl Championship Series when the matchups are revealed in a few weeks.

But coming into Friday's matchup against Utah State, all isn't perfect with Boise State, and even more maddening, there may not be much the Broncos can do to control their fate. With TCU sitting at number four in the BCS rankings, and with the BCS having never let two outside teams into its fraternity in a single season, there's a

good chance that Boise could miss out on a prime bowl bid for the second consecutive season.

The Horned Frogs should finish ahead of BSU, which would give them the automatic invite. No at-large team from a non-BCS conference has ever been selected. That leaves the Broncos with a bad taste in their mouths from week to week. It also leaves them with one option: dominate their opponent on a game-to-game basis and let the chips fall where they may.

"The BCS is not something that we actively talk about, but it's not something that we can ignore either," Broncos coach Chris Petersen said. "We know that it exists and we know it's there. It's our goal. But at the same time we have to focus on the opponent that's in front of us

because if we don't, there won't be any more BCS talk. Utah State has our focus. They jumped out at us on film. Gary Andersen's doing a great job with that program and they're going to be a challenge for us."

What Petersen knows is that he's built a rock star program at Boise and has taken just four years to do so. In his first season as the head coach (he was the offensive coordinator at Boise from 2001 to 2005), he took the Broncos to the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and highlighted it with a win over Oklahoma, still one of the greatest upsets in college football history.

Many thought that win on that big of a stage was a fluke, but Petersen has transformed his program from a national curiosity into a bona fide national power. He has dominated the WAC so thoroughly that there are rumors that power conferences are extending invitations. He has put a number of players in the National Football League. He's going after the kind of recruits who in times past he never would have dreamed about seeking -- and he's getting them. And he's ESPN's de facto Friday night darling.

"No question that's the program I want to emulate when building my own program," Andersen said. "I respect everything about them, from A to Z. Everyone talks about them offensively, but defensively they are the best team in the conference and it's not even close. They are almost a hundred yards better than everyone in this conference and that's quite an achievement. They are very deserving of their national ranking and I'm not sure their ranking shouldn't be even higher."

 

tjones@sltrib.com