Broncos hope to stop Locker's premature "Ascension"

The the 20th ranked Broncos (I'm using our higher ranking, sue me) line up this Saturday against traditional power Washington they hope to make a statement about who's the dominant team in the Northwest. Certainly in the last few years, Washington has had their share of woes, and has in many ways gone the opposite direction of the Broncos.

HOWEVER, the Husky Nation has cause for jubilation...it seems their savior has arrived in the seemingly mortal body of Jake Locker. Now, the Vatican wants to see a few more documented miracles before they bestow sainthood upon young Locker—but for the time being...the kid looks like the "real deal". Of course, I am merely having some fun at the expense of some Husky fans that believe that Locker can do everything short of walking on water—he is young, talented and looks to be a good one. I am just not sure if he can singlehandedly win this game for the Huskies.

Boise State comes into the game, virtually at full strength, but are they the same strength as last year? Linebacker Kyle Gingg returns to the field after a fall camp concussion and DE Mike T. Williams should be back from an unspecified leg injury. CB Kyle Wilson suffered a broken hand in the Weber State game but will start against UW. Hopefully Wilson's sure tackling won't be affected as the Huskies' team speed could be a concern around the edges.

Locker was 14 of 19 in his debut against Syracuse...the exact same completion percentage as Taylor Tharp in his debut against Weber. Tharp only played about one half of football though, so it is hard to read too far into this. Similarly, Locker never had to get too "fancy" against the vanilla Syracuse defense. Locker showed in the Syracuse game that he is dangerous with his feet, adding 83 yards rushing to his stats. Locker should have a tougher time rushing the ball against the historically tough BSU defense, but if UW running back Louis Rankin can contribute and get some good runs going, Locker could have some open lanes. I think an option-style attack from the Huskies could be successful against our fairly young D-line and linebackers...then again, it could not be successful as well.

The key to this game will be ball management and turnovers. I think that Boise State's secondary is primed for some interceptions and if Justin Wilcox can cook up some good blitz packages and make Locker throw some rushed throws, Tadmand and the gang will be licking their collective chops.

Ian Johnson will of course be a big factor as well as he sets out to prove to another Pac-10 team that he's for real. Nobody's really thinking that Johnson will match his 240 yard, 5 TD outing that he had against Oregon State last year, but I do think that he can cause major problems for the Husky defense. If Ian can get into their secondary, he will be nearly impossible to stop. With Boise State's excellent O-line...I can see a big day for Johnson and I suspect won't see a whole lot of the passing game unless they start to really place all their efforts on stopping the run.

The unit matchups in this game are intriguing as both teams tend to match strengths to weaknesses. UW's defensive weakness appears to be their secondary, but with a good D-line and inexperience in the Broncos deep threats...this could be neutralized. Of course, the Bronco strength on offense is the O-line and the run game...so something has gotta give here.

I will put the special teams play as a "tie" between the two schools...both have young kickers that need to step up and both appear to have legitimate return men. The Broncos, for one, need to work on their kickoff coverage as several near disasters played out last week.

Here's my bottom line: If Tharp can manage to game, not turn the ball over and not try to match Locker BSU will be fine.
If Johnson can get 25-30 touches and keep his ypc the same as it is AND not turn the ball over, BSU will be fine.
If Boise States' D-line can get some pressure on Locker and the Linebacking corps can take away Jake's "escape routes", BSU will be fine.

BSU has a history of taking a quarter or two to "figure out" strong running QBs and I hope that Wilcox has the boys ready for the dual-threat when they step on the field. Strong tackling, heads up play and aggressiveness will make the Bronco D tough to get through. Locker is not invincible and if the Broncos can force him to make mistakes (or pull his halo down over his eyes) the Dawgs will have to go with other options.

Boise State 32, Washington 20

The World According to Tharp

Well kids, the first game is in the books and if you braved the scorching Boise temperatures and made it to the Blue you witnessed a very impressive showing by the newly reloaded Broncos, easily beating the Weber St. Wildcats 56-7 in a game where had Chris Petersen not been such a "nice guy" and called off the dogs before halftime, the Broncos could've hung 90 on the scoreboard. Taylor Tharp was lookin' Sharp as he connected on 14 passes out of 19 attempts and netted over 180 yards through the air and led BSU's first team offense down the field eight seperate times for scores. The defining moment of the evening—the one that has all Boise State fans licking their collective chops was when Tharp dropped back, got drilled and planted in the turf...but not before unloading a perfectly thrown 53-yard TD strike to True Freshman Titus Young. I, for one, breathed a sigh of relief to see that the oft-analyzed Tharp indeed had "big play" ability and looked crisp in his debut as the starter. Tharp was accurate, made safe throws and aired them out when he needed to.

Freshman ruled the day as true freshman Titus Young, DJ Harper, Austin Pettis, Brad Elkin and Brandyn Thompson all saw fairly significant playing time. Titus Young looks like the real deal as he took a reverse 23 yards on his first touch of the game and then on the next drive outstripped the Wildcat defenders for the most exciting passing TD of the night. Running back DJ Harper also looks like he's gonna be a good one as he showed Ian Johnson-like patience in reading his blocks and displayed his tough running as he broke several tackles on a 10-yard TD scamper. WR Austin Pettis has sticky hands and pulled in some nice passes over the middle from Tharp. CB Brandyn Thompson played mostly on special teams but looked good in with the 2nd team D as well. True frosh punter Brad Elkin didn't get much work in and didn't quite find his rhythm yet, but his punts weren't terrible and everyone knows that when he gets down division 1 game tempo he will be a good one.

Redshirt freshman Jeremy Avery is going to be a total stud. The little guy can move. Deep in the Bronco's own territory, Avery came in for Johnson and proceeded to take his first handoff 50 yards in what looked like he would go all the way. The backfield is absolutely stacked with Avery, Johnson and Harper and should have no trouble moving the ball on anyone this year. Johnson, by the way played all of a quarter and a half of ball, but seemed to knock the rust off quickly rushing for 128 yards on 18 carries and garnering 3 touchdowns. Johnson chipped away on every run he had, quietly gaining 5-6 yards each time before following an amazing Richie Brockel block around the left side for a too-easy 56 yard TD.

The Defense looks amazing. Yeah, yeah...we were playing "lowly" Weber State, but our Secondary made former SEC QB Jimmy Barnes (who was listed as 6'5", 230 lbs., but didn't look an ounce under 270) look downright awful all night. In fact, Weber State scarcely had any first downs or yardage before halftime (49-0, at that point, BTW) Marty Tadman showed why he is an SI.com All-America pick as he was all over any pass that came his direction, and Orlando Scandrick and Kyle Wilson locked down their sides of the field amazingly well.

Wilson and Tadman also showed that the punt return game may have a bright future too as both took a Wildcat punt over 60 yards and nearly scored both times. Wilson directed blockers on his punt return as he nearly took it to the house, eventually outrunning his blocks and being forced out at about the 10 yard line.

I know that you can't ever tell a whole lot about a team when they open against a 1-AA squad, but if last year's perfect season is any indicator (when BSU beatdown Sac St. 45-0) we should be in fairly good shape. The game wasn't sloppy, the starters and newcomers looked incredibly crisp for the first outing and the offense and defense seemed to be firing on all cylinders.

Next week, Boise State tries to get the BCS road-game monkey off their backs as they travel to Seattle to take on the UW Huskies. Without having to reallly open up the playbook last night, the Broncos may have some big surprises in store for the Dawgs..and I'd wager our running game will be a big factor in this one.

Here is a link to a nice slideshow of the game put together by BoiseStatefans.com

Pic at top of article from boisestatefans.com

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Out of the Blue movie Trailer

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