Game Week...and Own Goals

Ah the road of the crowd. The roar of Arizona State fans giving me grief because I mistakenly put "Wildcats" instead of "Sun Devils" on the website in the little story I do for the weekly game notes...er...Game Notes. Yes a fan called both me, and Jeff Tingey, and yes, I fixed it. While I'd love to blame someone...I just goofed up. Less you think I don't stand up when I screw up, I actually posted apologies at Devils Digest and Sun Devils Message Board. Yeah, I manned up...I'm saying it.

However, just to get you all in the mood for a little pigskin, and a big weekend in general in road athletics (soccer at the Governor's Cup, and volleyball also at Arizona State) here are some good links and stuff.

First of all, checking the local news stations websites should be required viewing. Brad Shellgren and Paul Shahen at KPVI have video from Arizona, Oklahoma, and of course ISU press conferences...Paul was in Tempe....nice. Check out their sportscasts from 8/31 and 9/1. Over at KIFI, there's almost too much video to link to, but check out Alyssa Chin's piece on the offense (the defense and special teams will be up later this week), and there are also good pieces on Coach Z talking about Babe Caccia, and some of the newcomers on the volleyball team.

Nothing new in the Journal today, but Kelvin Ang is working on a huge John Zamberlin piece about his playing career for this weekend, and his last big piece was the Tuiasosopo Niusulu piece which was awesome, so this should be fun. He of course adds to his blog daily.

Now, fun times in Tempe, where Dennis Erickson has suspended "5 or 6" players. The media down in Tempe is scrambling because....well..that's all they said. They didn't say who the five or six are. Nice right? Don't you love big time football? Maybe John Zamberlin should have said in the press conference that one or three guys might not make the trip due to eligibility issues, but not say who they were. That would have been fabulous LOL. The East Valley Tribune, DevilsDigest, and many others are trying to figure out the names. The might need these guys to help figure it out.

Dennis Erickson didn't address in much in his press conference, but he did talk a little about knowing John Zamberlin, and his thoughts on Idaho State. Of course, you can watch all of ISU's press conference proceedings on the official site as we posted them on Monday afternoon.

By the way, of the 39 FBC/FCS games this week....the Washington Times doesn't think too highly of our chances...

Governor's Cup Conundrum
Forgive my little rant here, but when you get ready for soccer this week and the Governor's Cup, don't read Boise State's version of the tournament history. It's wrong. Doug Link and I argue about this all the time, but as I've mentioned to him before, I've been here for every single one of these deals. The Governor's Cup is the accumulation of the results between the three Idaho schools. The first three years it was done in a format were one school hosted the other two, so that everyone got to have two home games every third year, since home games for new programs are hard to come by. In 2001, Boise State won the cup, but they don't even acknowledge that, as they said all the games weren't played, but that year our game with Idaho got cancelled and because of a date problem and we couldn't work it back into the schedule, and then 9/11 happened, and whatever.

Then it went for a few years were each team would host one, and travel to the other (ISU, UI, and BSU), and now they are back to the everyone at one site format.

Boise State doesn't recognize one of the ties in which we retained the cup (the original rules of the cup....again, I was a part of this, was whoever had the better record won the cup, and if there was a tie, it was goal differential, then it was goals scored, and it it was tied after that, whoever had possession of the cup retained the cup. That happened with us, and we always state we retained it after a tie.) and BSU even mentions that Seattle was the Idaho Governor's Cup. That can't happen...they ain't a part of Idaho....

So anyways, Doug Link and I have agreed to disagree on this, and they go with their version, and we go with our version. Of course, I think my version is the right version, and BSU thinks there's is correct...either way, a little soccer controversy never hurt anyone, and makes the proceedings more fun. FYI, Boise State won it last year...

Speaking of controversy
Getting ready for Oklahoma and Arizona State, I just love dealing with soccer controversy, but here I am again in the middle of it...and poor Annamarie Hofstetter. When is a goal not a goal? Apparently when she scores it. Here's the deal...on Friday, she takes a free kick, which deflects off a defender and into the net. Southern Utah had no SID present....just a student working his first game apparently from what I was told. He didn't know how to score it and credited it to Hofstetter. Great right? Well, they changed it to an own goal after he talked with the referee.
Now, all the ref said was that the ball hit the defender and went in, and had it not hit the defender, it would have been saves (Allison and Hof both said the exact same thing) and that it was an own goal. Um....see, that's why refs ref and I do what I do. I have to read the scorer's rulebook....I'm guessing the ref didn't, because that isn't an own goal. It's pretty clear in the scoring section of the rulebook that if a player's shot is deflected into the goal, then the player who shot the ball gets credit for the goal. If a player shoots or passes a ball back into their own net....that's an own goal.

The guy I feel sorry for is Kyle Cottam, who is SUU's SID for soccer, who wasn't there and has to go on here say from his coach (who admitted he didn't have a good look at it) and his student, who doesn't really know soccer. We are awaiting the game film and I'm gonna watch it for myself, and if it's pretty obvious this is scored wrong, I'll have to go over folks head to get this changed. What sucks is poor Annamarie hasn't scored since the second game of her career...she is a senior now. Jon Kasper has my back on this...for now it is staying as an own goal (we had switched it already in the notes for this week figuring this was a no-brainer....boy was I wrong).

I love crap like this...we had this at Boise State in fact in 2006...Jason Erickson was there, and we were playing Idaho and an obvious goal was mistakenly ruled an own goal. We got that one switched pretty quick, but not without some hassle...and here I am three years later with the same thing.

I agonized last year when I credited an own goal against UC Davis, but the ball wasn't going in, and our player tried to clear the ball away and hit it into our net by mistake...that's an own goal. Honestly, soccer should get with the rest of America and credit the goal to the last player to touch it. Maybe I'll try to get that changed.