Sticker time!

This is the most masculine sticker I could find.

Kids love stickers. I should know...I used to be one (not a sticker, but a kid). I used to have a whole book full of scratch-n-sniffs and Garbage Pail Kids stickers. Now, my kid is wracking up the stickers every time we go to Fred Meyers and he's loving them too. Well, the Boise State coaches are handing out star-shaped stickers during Spring Camp, and like the attendance sheet in elementary school, it's paying dividends.

"The coaches would say 'it's amazing what the (high school) kids will do for a sticker,'" (Coach Pete) said. "Well, the high school kids and college kids aren't that much different."

Nor are any of us, Coach Pete, stickers are awesome (especially potstickers from Oriental Express)!

The most heavily stickered player on the team is Richie Brockel...and not due to his on-field prowess. Brockel is injured this Spring and the tight-end crew has taken it upon themselves to sticker up Brockel's visage in the team room whenever they can.

Other childhood carryovers that may help motivate the Broncos this Spring:
Coach Pete draws a smiley face on players' playbooks.
10 minutes extra recess.
High fives.
Pizza party.
May pick one toy out of bin.

Star Power in Spring [Press Tribune]

All together now.

The Broncos celebrated togetherness this morning as the newcomers and veterans all converged on the Blue Turf (in full pads, no less) for the first time this fall. The true freshman who will contribute this year will start to make themselves known and the wiley veterans will show the youngsters a thing or two as well. All reports so are good. Titus the Young caught a 50-yard TD strike from wunderkind Kellen Moore and then Vinny Perretta brought in one of his own from Bush Hamdan. The two top-dogs in the QB derby certainly are both playing well...making it difficult to guess as to where the depth chart stands. Monday will be the first scrimmage and fans and analysts should be able to see who controls the offense better. It's fair to say that Moore and Hamdan have stepped it up.

Also stepping it up is the Bronco Defense. Coming of an inconsistent 2007 and losing stalwarts Orlando Scandrick and Marty Tadman...all indicators are that the defense has the fire back in their bellies. They've been creating turnovers at an alarming rate and Ryan Winterswyk and Mike T. Williams are setting themselves up to be the best Defensive End-tandem in the conference...both have been named Coach Pete's Player of the Day so far. The linebacking corps, (now with more Acrey!) have been pickin' off passes and pickin' fights. All good signs.

How the offensive line will come together still remains to be seen. Several youngsters should get in the mix soon and we'll see very soon if any of the frosh hosses will get thrown into the fire.

Getting close now...young and old have converged and it's about to get interesting.

Fresh Linkage:

OBNUG's Cliff's Camp Notes

Statueleft does some covert ops on Day 2 of camp

Kellen Moore speaks, people listen.

Dustin Lapray paints a vivid scene of fall camp. Get Pulitzer on the phone!

Are you ready for some football?!

All the hand-wringing and speculation about Jeremy Childs can now come to an end. Fall Camp opened today at East Junior High and Jeremy Childs was among the participants. Childs, who missed the Hawaii Bowl (causing Taylor Tharp to have several circuits blow) and the Spring semester due to off-the-field issues is back for his Junior season—and hopefully ready to sync up with whomever is under center this Fall. Childs should be the leader among the talented group of receivers that Boise State returns this year in senior Vinny Perretta and sophomores Titus Young and Austin Pettis.

A large contingent of walk-ons joined the team this morning:

No. 10 Drew Hawkins (QB, Boulder, Colo.), No. 17 Carlo Augnotti (RB, Johannesburg, South Africa), No. 20 Josh Borgman (CB, Boise), No. 33 Jimmy Pavle (PK, Molalla, Ore.), No. 38 Josh Hill (TE, Blackfoot), No. 39 Drew Wright (RB, Nampa), No. 43 Alex Ruben (LB, Scottsdale, Ariz.), No. 45 James Crawford (LS, Westlake Village, Calif.), No. 46 Hazen Moss (LB, Rifle, Colo.), No. 48 J.C. Percy (LB, Blackfoot), No. 54 Michael Ames (LB, Boise), No. 56 Alex Lavoy (LB, Reno), No. 63 Jake Densley (OL, Boise), No. 65 Tim Whipps (OL, Eagle), No. 74 Zach Gholson (DE, Carlsbad, Calif.), No. 78 Demetri Sauve (OL, Boise), No. 83 Brett Davis (WR, Boise), No. 84 Tim Ruben (WR, Scottsdale, Ariz.).

Absent among the newcomers is LB/FB Jake Hess out of Nevada, who was reported to be joining the team back in May. Two former walk-ons have left the program as well—kicker Brock Jaramillo and Safety Shaun Jordan. Sophomore Kyle Brotzman is just too good for Jaramillo to get any real time and we think Jordan may have seen the writing on the wall as well with the emergence of George Iloka, among others.

DJ Harper impressed in a morning session that included Kellen Moore, Bush Hamdan and Nick Lomax. Freshmen Chase Baker and Shea McLellin worked with their elders on the D-line. The young'uns practice this afternoon. We'll keep you all posted when the camper of the day is announced. Coach Pete is to hold a presser at 2:30

Link #1
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Open mouth, insert cliché

If you've been following Spring ball in Boise (or anywhere else in the country for that matter), you've been treating to a coaching cliche at every turn. Even straight-shooting Coach Pete caught himself dropping one too many cliches a few weeks ago and the previous skipper, Dan Hawkins made it annoying an artform. Well, Eric Lacy of the Detroit News breaks down the top 5 coaching clichés that you will hear this Spring—then when the season finally starts, we'll be treated to a whole new slew of clichés like, "We're taking it one game at a time", or "We're not overlooking anyone"...or "We're going to give 110%". Hooray.

Top 5 Spring coaching clichés

If you've got any more, shoot them my way.