Sports

BCS Busters: UH, TCU or Boise State?

Houston’s offense, focus should open the door

With top-10 teams falling every week, mid-major conference upstarts are starting to see the light at the end of the BCS tunnel. Three schools have a fighting chance at cracking the ever-exclusive club this season – TCU, Boise State and Houston. But it’s still a very young season.

Each team has its roadblocks, and in the Cougars’ case, three consecutive hurdles come in the form of road games.

That being said, if the Cougars can emerge unscathed from the road trip, which includes a stop in Starkville, Miss. to take on Mississippi State, they may have the clearest path to the promised land.

The Cougars host Conference USA bottom feeders SMU and Memphis along with a rebuilding Rice program, all of whom should provide little resistance.

The biggest key for the Cougars may be their ability to dictate the style of play and wear down opponents with their aerial attack. UH has a proven leader in quarterback Case Keenum and an abundance of young players who have passed early-season tests. They may be too young to know they are not supposed to be in contention for a BCS bowl, and as they say, ignorance is bliss.

The Cougars have to know that winning non-conference games means nothing if they don’t win the C-USA crown. If they stay focused on their preseason goal of winning a C-USA Championship, the ultimate bonus prize may await them in January.

Phillipe Craig is the sports editor for The Daily Cougar.

Best is yet to come for Frogs

As TCU notched its third win of the season, taking down Clemson in Death Valley, the Frogs have been thrust back into the BCS spotlight.

The way the polls sit right now, the Frogs are not likely get a bid to a BCS bowl because of Boise State’s No. 5 ranking after a big season-opening win against the rising University of Oregon.

Head coach Gary Patterson knows the Frogs still have one trick up their sleeve that will push them to the top of the non-qualifiers. It’s as simple as one statement Patterson made during his post-game press conference after the team’s victory over Clemson – the Frogs have not played their best football yet.

More than half of the season remains to be played, and the Frogs are unifying and coming close to their potential on both sides of the ball, but they still have room to improve.

Boise State and Houston have reached their peaks this season with no real challenging team to beat until it’s time to go bowling. The Frogs still have to face a high-quality Mountain West Conference that includes a 3-1 Air Force team and Wyoming, who gave Texas a run for its money a few weeks ago.’

That doesn’t include Utah, who is at the edge of the top 25 and No. 20 BYU, who beat the University of Oklahoma in week one and will continue to rise in the rankings with every victory. While Boise State is the higher-ranked team at this point, the Bronco’s stock has nowhere to go but down. The Frogs are on the rise and as long as they stay unbeaten, they will find themselves playing in January for the first time in many years.

Travis L. Brown is a senior news-editorial major from Dallas.

‘ Broncos statistically favorite to bust BCS party

Every college football season reveals new non-automatic BCS qualifiers. The cream of the underdog football crop starts to rise to positions of potential greatness in the eyes of fans. The one team that has set the pace for all others year after year has been the No. 5 Broncos of Boise State.

Statistically, the Broncos are superior to No. 11 TCU and the No. 12 Houston in key areas.

All three teams boast talented quarterbacks. However, sophomore BSU quarterback Kellen Moore has emerged as an athlete who has ice running through his veins. When he guides a receiver into the end zone – averaging 2.5 touchdown passes per game – he simply grins and saunters off to the sidelines and gets ready to do it again.

Moore is currently the second most efficient passer in the country with a rating of 175.77, but most importantly he knows how to put the Broncos into a scoring position. They have averaged 38.6 points per game with Moore behind center. In less than a season and a half he has already thrown 35 touchdowns.

The Broncos also claim several national top honors in many categories including: No. 7 scoring offense (45.0 ppg), No. 11 turnover margin (+1.5), No. 7 team passing efficiency (166.82) and No. 5 defensive passing efficiency (83.69). That does not include the multiple categories in which BSU touts top-25 honors. All of this with only four active seniors on the roster, two of whom are expected to be NFL draftees, cornerback Kyle Wilson and tight end/fullback Richie Brockel.

This isn’t the end of BSU dominance. Just wait until the 2010 season.

Kirk Bell is the athletics editor for the Boise State Arbiter.

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