Sven Alskog
Sports Editor
Amidst the sea of blue and orange at the Smurf Turf at Albertsons Stadium, it was obvious the difference for a Boise State team with 85 scholarships, compared to 63 for Idaho State.
The extra scholarships allow teams out of the FBS like the Broncos to commonly steamroll over FCS schools when they get together.
Coming into the Friday matchup, FBS teams had gone 65-4 in 2015 against their competition from FCS conferences, highlighted by a couple of wins for Big Sky schools in North Dakota topping Wyoming and Portland State defeating Washington State.
These non-conference tilts are played for one reason each year, with that reasoning being something that dictates decisions of our society far too often.
Money.
As Oklahoma State head football coach Mike Gundy stated when calling out a reporter during a press conference a few years back, “Are you kidding me?”
“A great opportunity to show you can play at the collegiate level,” is what ISU Head Coach Mike Kramer called going into Boise during his Wednesday presser before the game.
But at the end of the day how much does the 52-0 loss to the Broncos tell us about the Bengals? Honestly, not much.
It was a money game. A transaction of $425,000 between the two schools was made. A necessary evil in what is today’s collegiate athletics world.
“When you have 85 scholarships to 63 it’s not fair. I know why we do it. I’m going to tell you exactly how I feel. No, I don’t like it. As a parent, as a player, no I don’t like it,” said Kramer during the press conference.
Lost in the shuffle to a certain extent have been the losses of linebacker Mario Jenkins and safety Taison Manu.
They shouldn’t be. The losses have proven huge early in the season.
“It is a nonconference September game. We will be alright. We are still trying to recover from the loss of two great players. That is an obvious fact on every play,” stated Kramer following the game.
Jenkins was the Bengals leading tackler in 2014 with 120 on his way to Big Sky second team honors, while Manu had 110, including five games with 11 or more tackles to earn a spot on the third team for the conference.
We go back to the scholarships.
Boise State starting quarterback Ryan Finley was injured in the first half of the game with ISU. Broncos Head Coach Bryan Harsin then went to his bench for Thomas Stuart with plenty of success. Then he burned the redshirt of four-star recruit Brett Rypien, who is now expected to play plenty this season.
Before the night was over BSU even got a fourth quarterback involved in the action, displaying the depth of the program.
At smaller schools such as ISU it is much more difficult to find “fill-ins” of that caliber.
“Give Boise State a lot of credit. They are pretty good and they play well at home. I hope their starting quarterback is OK. They played a plethora of quarterbacks and they got better with each one,” added Kramer.
Now the key for ISU is rebounding from a tough loss, heading into what is the murderers row of the 2015 schedule so to speak.
Three road games in three weeks will follow, starting with another matchup with an FBS program in UNLV this Saturday, then road conference games at Cal Poly and North Dakota.
Bouncing back sits heavily in the hands of the offensive side of the football.
Last year, the ISU football team put up over 30 points-per-game for ten weeks in row. So far this year, they have put up 14 combined in the last two contests, including the shutout at Boise State.
There were glimpses of what can be against the Broncos, with the task now being to put it all together.
“I saw some improvement, especially at quarterback where we played a little bit better. He [Michael Sanders] was a little errant and high during the middle of the game, but he played with pretty good poise in keeping the rush off of him. We have to be able to finish drives,” said Kramer.
The game on Saturday in Las Vegas will begin at 7 p.m. and all the action can be heard on KEIR 101.1 FM with “The Bengal” adviser Jerry Miller on the call.
