Friday, January 27, 2012.

Boise State’s Kellen Moore has been as polarizing in his college football afterlife as the Broncos themselves seem to be every season.  There’s a faction out there that wants him to fail, and sometimes you wonder if some of the national media covering practice this week aren’t among that group.  Certainly Moore’s week hasn’t been what he wanted, but those who see the bigger picture don’t completely dismiss him.  Mike Mayock at NFL.com is one of them.  “Kellen Moore is not athletic, a tough thing for a quarterback who is less than six feet tall and has an average arm,” writes Mayock.  “However, he’s got one of the most anticipatory throws in the college game, which is why he has some potential.”  Most key NFL personnel will have left Mobile by tomorrow’s game, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be paying attention to Kellen’s performance.

Brian Murphy of the Statesman reports that Quaylon Ewing-Burton has been dismissed from the Boise State football team.  Murphy cited a BSU spokesperson who said Ewing-Burton “did not live up to the standards of the program.”  It was Ewing-Burton who initially took a starting spot at cornerback when Jerrell Gavins was lost for the season due to a knee injury.  It went okay for a while—then he was replaced by Ebo Makinde in the lineup.  When Makinde went down with an injury in the TCU game, Ewing-Burton had to return.  Bronco fans will forever wonder why Ewing-Burton didn’t just swat away the Horned Frogs’ game-winning two-point conversion instead of going for the interception…

One of the big stories in the college football recruiting world this winter has been decommits on the part of players who opt for other schools.  It’s a dog-eat-dog environment.  But that seldom happens to Boise State.  Linebacker Ben Weaver from the Houston area gave the Broncos his verbal back in June—then followed with a stellar senior season.  Scout.com reports that Texas A&M came in late and ended up offering a scholarship to Weaver, who lives two hours from College Station.  "A&M offered me a few hours ago," Weaver informed Scout.com's Ahmard Vital via text message a few days ago.  "I'm not visiting and I'm staying committed to Boise."

Boise State hopes it didn’t leave it all on the floor Wednesday night in taking 12^th-ranked UNLV to overtime.  Wyoming will present its own set of challenges tomorrow in Taco Bell Arena.  The Cowboys gave San Diego State all sorts of trouble Wednesday in a 52-42 loss to the Aztecs and riddled Colorado State 70-51 last weekend.  The Broncos will need to be on their game from the opening tip.  Boise State has offset horrifically slow offensive starts the past two games by coming out of the gates strong defensively.  Bronco opponents have combined to shoot just 18-of-60 in the first half the last two contests.

If you need any supporting evidence of Boise State’s youth movement in hoops, you need go no further than this: the Broncos used their 10^th different starting lineup in 19 games in Wednesday night’s overtime loss to UNLV.  But you see hope for the future in the box scores.  Boise State boasts five 20-point games by freshmen this season—three from Anthony Drmic and two from Derrick Marks. The five 20-point showings are more than the combined total of 20-point games by Bronco freshmen the last 17 seasons.  Drmic was the star in November and December, while January has been Marks’ month.

The two Boise State student flash mob performances at Wednesday night’s Bronco-UNLV game have gone viral the past 24 hours.  It was quite the choreographed sight.  It could be a turning point for the long-maligned student section in Taco Bell Arena.  The students have been strong all season, but the flash mob took it to the next level, energizing the rest of the crowd of 6,000-plus.  The athletic department marketing people put the plan together.  Then they had what they call “rock star interns” create the dance and help get the students out in force.  There were some huge student sections during the Bronco basketball heyday in the late 1980’s, but they were never organized the way the students were Wednesday.

The Idaho Stampede dropped their fourth game in a row last night, falling 111-102 at Springfield.  The Stampede shot 50 percent but committed a startling 22 turnovers, a massive number for a D-League team.  Terrico White, who has already been waived and re-signed once this month, led the Stamps with 20 points.  The Stampede’s East Coast swing wraps up with a test against the Maine Red Claws tonight.

Here’s hoping cooler heads prevail, especially those accompanied by Utah uniforms, when the Idaho Steelheads host the Grizzlies tonight in CenturyLink Arena.  This is the first meeting of the clubs since the penalty-fest at Utah a week and a half ago, when there were a stunning 127 penalty minutes assessed in the Steelies’ 4-1 victory.  The Grizzlies logged 87 of them and were largely lampooned for it.  The Steelheads kept their composure as much as could be expected.  Tomorrow night both teams head down to the scene of the crime, the Maverik Center in West Valley City, UT, where they play again tomorrow night and Monday night. 

Former Boise State star Graham DeLaet is into his second PGA Tour event of the season, shooting a one-over 73 in the opening round of the Farmers Insurance Open.  (I still like to think of it as the Andy Williams San Diego Open.)  DeLaet is 11 shots off the pace, which would seem to put him in danger of missing the cut today.  But he played the Torrey Pines South course yesterday, which is playing much tougher than the North course, the one he tackles today.  If DeLaet makes it to the weekend, he’ll participate in the Farmers “College Day” tomorrow.  He’s brought down a colorful blue and orange mix he’s anxious to show off.

The Boise State wrestling team has already reached its final home meet of the season.  The Broncos face Oregon State tonight in Taco Bell Arena, trying to improve on a 32-10 loss they absorbed at the hands of the 20^th-ranked Beavers earlier this season.  And Boise State hosts over 500 college and high school track and field athletes in the Jackson’s Invitational on the Jackson’s Indoor Track at the Idaho Center today and tomorrow.  The field includes the University of Georgia, whose men’s and women’s teams are ranked 23^rd and 13^th in the country, respectively.

This Day In Sports…January 27, 1973:

Keith Wilkes scores 20 points and Bill Walton adds 16 as UCLA breaks the college basketball record for longest winning streak, notching its 61^st victory in a row in an 82-63 win at Notre Dame.  It was on that floor in South Bend that the streak would end almost a year later after being stretched to 88 games.  The run had started in January, 1971.

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment Sunday nights at 10:30PM on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors five sports segments each weekday on 93.1 The Ticket.  He also served as color commentator on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football for 14 seasons.)