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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted at 11:34 a.m., Tuesday, January 2, 2007

How do you ignore Boise State if there were a playoff?

By Mike Lopresti
Gannett News Service

Seen the replays yet of what those guys with their home games on blue grass pulled off? It may have taken 2007 less than 24 hours to come up with the play of the year.

And now that we can all agree how crowd-pleasing Boise State's bravado was in the Fiesta Bowl, and how it's a shame that the 13-0 Broncos can't play for the national championship, and how this is the perfect argument for a playoff ... well, can we hold the applause for one question.

Are we sure Boise State would have even been in a playoff, if there were one? Not to be nitpicky.

The Broncos' lively overtime shocker of Oklahoma underlines not only the promise of a playoff when it comes — and it's coming — but also the complexities.

Boise State is now the Susan B. Anthony of non-BCS conferences. Their cause in future postseasons will be harder to ignore. Next time anyone belittles their right to be included at the big table, just pop in the tape of the Broncos pulling out the Statue of Liberty to beat Oklahoma.

But that means the line into the playoff of the future will be that much longer, and those in the back will be as happy as airport travelers at a security gate queue. Some familiar faces will be among them.

Take the eight-team bracket that everyone seems to admire. Put in the six champions from the six BCS conferences this season. Add Michigan.

One spot would be left. Boise State? Few would differ now. But that would mean no Wisconsin (12-1). No LSU. No Notre Dame. No Auburn. No California. It'd be tricky telling some of them no.

What Boise State did Monday night was warn how tricky. When the day comes, there will be more than just the usual suspects pressing to get in the door. It'll be a crowd, some of them from strange places.

Among Boise State's 13 victims were Oregon State, Utah, Hawaii and San Jose State. All four just won bowl games. The message has been sent. The Broncos' 3-16 record against teams from the BCS conferences just became old news.

Highly watchable it was, too. You can go years in football without seeing a Statue of Liberty — where the quarterback fakes a passing motion and slips the ball to a running back. Or a hook-and-lateral play — where a receiver catches a pass and then pitches to another receiver in a true roll of the dice. Boise State used them both within 15 minutes.

The Bronco who ran in the winning play then proposed to his girlfriend, one of the cheerleaders. You couldn't make this stuff up.

"We had to pull out every trick in the bag," said coach Chris Petersen, which is just what a team should do in a bowl game.

It is, so far, the centerpiece for postseason that began so lethargically but grew animated. New Year's Day's produced not only Boise State, but West Virginia coming from 18 points down to whisk past Georgia Tech, USC delivering a symposium on defense in the first half and passing in the second against Michigan, and Joe Paterno watching a Penn State victory over Tennessee from the press box, in his first appearance as an 80-year-old coach.

In earlier days, three bowls were won by a single point, Rutgers won its first bowl game despite playing football since just after the Civil War, and Minnesota blew a 31-point lead to lose in overtime against Texas Tech in a meltdown so stunning, the coach was fired.

And Ohio State still has to play Florida. Sooner or later. For entertainment value, Boise State will be a hard act to follow.