Bengals, Aggies, Soccer, Oh My!

Another day, another contest for Idaho State, and this time it counts. The ISU soccer team will take on Utah State at 4:00 pm today at Davis Field in what should be a pretty good game. Last year ISU went 7-5-6, and Utah State was 10-11-0, tying a school record for wins. The Aggies were 5-2 in the WAC last year thought, and interestingly enough, ISU head coach Allison Gibson has not beaten the Aggies, losing 1-0 in the 2006 opener, and 1-0 last year in overtime with Gibson in stands (she was red carded after the Utah game last year).

Anyways, the game kicks off at 4:00 pm, and the radio broadcast is at 3:55 pm or so....I'll try not to stink up the joint like I did last Wednesday...I'll be better...promise. Also, Utah State's take on today's match is here. In a "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", USU's soccer SID is Kara Irving, who just joined that staff after working at the Western Athletic Conference as an Information Director, meaning that Jason Erickson, formerly the Assistant SID here, was promoted at the WAC to Director of Men's Sports Information. Jason and his wife Marisa are also expecting a boy in early January! Yea Jason!

Over Hill, Over Dale....
Russel Hill had been fairly vanilla in the first two scrimmages, but for the final one, he was near letter perfect, yet everyone, including Dan Thompson, wanted to talk to backup quarterback Kyle Blum, who had the play of the day on a blocked extra point. His extra stuff made it to the blog on the Journal site as well. Tony at Channel 3 filed a scrimmage report, as did Paul Shahen of Channel 6.

Thoughts on the Big Sky state
The folks over at MaxMedia in Montana have been blogging on the state of Montana and Montana State practices....and honestly, and I've said this before, but sometimes practice is just practice...guys are gonna throw interceptions in practice, guys are gonna catch passes...it's the little things that you look for in a practice. How a kid blocks away from the play when the coaches aren't watching...things like that. Still, you can see tons of practice video there, which is a little goofy, but oh well.

Look Who is Here....
Freshmen have arrived! Thankfully, no one has come to the office looking for the Holt Arena elevator just yet. Apparently, one senior isn't thrilled about things though, but hey, I took 21 hours and then 20 my final year to graduate...anything can be done.

A Bronco Perspective on Things
JT Ray, who writes for the very informative BroncoNationNOW blog, will be interviewing me about the game sometime Saturday for the blog. He posted his take on the game (mentioning the 2003 game as ammo of course), including some links, even linking to the Globe of Death that I posted on the site a while back. Even if you aren't a Bronco fan, JT's writing style is pretty good, and he's well informed. I'm curious to what type of access he gets from the BSU media relations folks, and I'll find that out on Saturday, but it should be a fun interview.

Also, have you heard that BSU is opening the season with a freshman quarterback for the first time in school history? Because it's been plastered everywhere, but here are the other freshmen who have started games for BSU.

Looking Ahead
Here is a report on the Vandals fall camp from the Argonaut. Cause, you know, we play them right after BSU...it'll be the first game of the season on a green field, so that should count for something.

I Got Email!
I just got the official release from the Sports Network that Eddie Thompson was named Preseason Second Team All-America at receiver...very cool.

Office Exploits
While I get grief for mentioning my hockey exploits (I neglected to mention the 195 foot goal I gave up last week from behind the other teams net....stupid bouncing pucks...), but this summer, Assistant SID Katie Zigars won a pair of tournaments, defending her title in the Chubbuck Days tournament and winning the Juniper Hills Open, which is a fairly big one as a USTA Sanctioned Adult Tournament (winning the women's singles open and doubles open). Of course, there are no online links to that, because as I've told Katie, my hockey is way more important than her tennis ... lack of online data supports my conclusion!

As always....
Questions, concerns, blog thoughts? Leave a comment, or email me at mercfran@isu.edu.