I actually like the Broncos, but let's not get too carried away. The teams they've played since Oregon have been nothing but glorified High School teams, and even at that, they had to work, and break a sweat, to put away Tulsa. And when they played Oregon, they were ugly as hell. They in no way knew how to defend Oregon's offense. They got lucky and enjoyed an Oregon implosion. They may break the BCS, but most likely not and won't until they really start playing more top tier teams.
There certainly are some high school teams on Boise State's schedule this year. Fresno State, Hawai'i, Nevada are not high school teams. Even the crazy Idaho Vandals might've moved from the high school list to the "real team" list this year
Here's a pdf from the BSU sports website. Just scroll down to page 2. This is a case where the stats don't lie. Boise knew enough to shut down the Oregon rushing attack, did it, and put the pressure on the Oregon passing attack, which folded under the pressure. :dunno: The misdirection playes and the option read component of the Duck offense didn't fool Boise. They run similar misdirection handoff plays. Contrast that with my Trojans who had no fucking clue what Oregon was doing, couldn't stop the run....kaboom. Game over.
Very thorough stat breakdown of BSU/UO
They receive free tuition to top universities, thereby receiving educations which they don't pay for and cost everyone else tens of thousands of dollars. They may not get a paycheck, but as they don't have to carry around student loans needing to be paid off, they most certainly do "get paid."
Depending on how cynical one wants to be, it's debatable whether or not a star player/NFL-calibre college talent actually receives a college education or are they basically handed one? Free tuition is a short-term benefit for the star athlete, but it's long-term benefit is questionable. Players do receive gifts for playing bowl games--championship rings, playstations, flatscreen tvs, all sorts of shwag, but that's probably the closest they come to actually getting paid. It would be sort of "dark humor" if the NCAA sent Brandon Spikes an NFL-type fine of $30K or whatever and he paid it...
Urban Meyer suspending Spikes for a half against Vandy is a joke. LeGaratte Blount almost started a "Malice in the Palace" type riot and deserved to be suspended by the University or the coach for his actions. He embarrassed himself and Oregon on national television. Without sportsmanship, there might as well not be a sport. Sportsmanship already is under fire by the trashtalk sport culture. College is not Pros. The Boise player incited the incident and didn't get punished for that, which I think is wrong too. He should've been suspended for 3 games. Spikes tried to injure the Georgia player. Hell, isn't that grounds for assault? Maybe the Georgia player should look at filing charges against Spikes :thefinger
Urban Meyer probably should've just admitted, "Guys I know what Spikes did was wrong and embarrassed our University. But there's no way I'm suspending my star defender. I get paid to win games. End of story."
