Oklahoma: Cleaning Up the Record

As an announcer, I hate screwing up facts on a broadcast. So I'm going to use this space to make some corrections to mistakes I made during Saturday night's broadcast from Oklahoma.

First of all, I need to apologize to freshman long snapper Clint Brock, who was suffering from a minor injury and did not play Saturday night. The Bengals had some bad snaps from back-up snapper Daniel Urias, and I didn't notice that it was not Brock on the field. That's a big mistake on my part, and I apologize for not confirming who the long-snapper was. And I'm not being critical of Urias -- he stepped up in the spring and took over the long-snapping job because the Bengals basically didn't have anybody else available. Then, to ask him to take the job back over under lousy conditions (it rained all day and night in Norman) without much preparation, well, it was a tough job.

Secondly, I don't know where my math went wrong (but somewhere there are a couple of nuns who used to teach at SS Peter & Paul elementary who are nodding at each other knowingly), but I proclaimed on the air that JD Ponciano broke the ISU record for most kick-off return yards during the game with the Sooners. Actually, he still needs 66 more yards (is that right, Frank? -- please check my subtraction!), and hopefully those will come against Weber State Saturday night in Ogden. No matter, "Ponce" did a great job Saturday night, picking up 104 all-purpose yards and doing such a good job in the return game that the Sooners stopped kicking to him. That's a big compliment.

Finally, I offer my last word on the issue of scheduling. As I noted last week, the worst part about playing Arizona State and Oklahoma back-to-back is that it makes it nearly impossible to run a good deal of your offense, and it makes it very difficult to tell where you stand on that side of the football. Nothing that happened Saturday night would change that perspective. But I would point out that the Bengal players seemed to really enjoy the "Oklahoma experience" (see the photo above of them taking pictures prior to their walk-through on Friday), and I find a lot of the message board chatter about "prostituting the players" to be ridiculous. The Bengals played a very physical brand of football against both ASU and the Sooners, and from that perspective, I thought they competed well. The edge in speed and quickness was the real difference I saw in both games, but none of the Bengal players I talked with during the trip felt embarrassed or used.

Join Jerry and I on the coach's show tonight (Monday night at 6 p.m. on KSEI, AM-930) to get an update on Isaiah Burel's condition, what happens to the quarterback situation with Russell Hill's injury, and how the Bengals plan to stop their tormentor, Trevyn Smith on Saturday.

--Brad B.

And thanks for being a Bengal fan -- it ain't always easy, but it's always fun.

Little Kids Everywhere

That's what we had yesterday after practice....little kids everywhere. ISU football hosted a free youth clinic on Thursday, and well over 200 kids came out, including girls, to learn some basic techniques, get taught by their favorite player, and just have a good time.

It was great to see the players interacting with the little kids (and some bigger junior high school kids). My favorites were the offensive line guys, showing kids that playing the line and blocking is cool. News Channel 6 was there filming at one point and Mitch Rudder started pumping one little guy up, yelling "Channel 6 baby, they want you little man...they want to see you throw a big block!" Now that little guy was pumped.

Great job by John Zamberlin and Jeff Tingey in setting that up. There was a huge poster signing after the day was over, and every kid got a voucher for a free ticket for Saturday. Many of the parents went around with the kids and got to talk with coaches and players as well, so there was lots of good communication lines going on. It was really a sight to see.

You Do Realize Returning Kicks Isn't Always Easy
While I don't necessarily disagree that we have to do a better job returning kicks, Kellis might be slightly off base a bit here, because I'm pretty sure they will take their chances with JD as opposed to a touchback. The unit did spring JD Ponciano for some huge returns against Idaho, and getting big returns this week might be really tough facing a solid coverage team in Montana State.

Barn-Burner
Ryan Collingwood talks about ISU's improvements on defense, and the close nature of the ISU-MSU series.

I Would Think They Would Want the Attention
The University of Idaho cheerleading saga continues, as the new, less risque uniforms will debut against Nevada on Saturday. It was nice of the cheerleaders to change the uniforms to focus more attention on the team, but Idaho hasn't won an FBS game since 2006.

Remember, soccer today at 4:00 pm at Davis Field....be there!

Welcome to the FCS......Finally

Well, Idaho State is now 0-2 in the Western Athletic Conference. The beauty of that statement was that we don't compete in the WAC. Of course, counting soccer we are 1-4 in the WAC this season. But that will change.

Anyways, the Bengals get an extra few days to heal up a bit and ready themselves for North Dakota, who is 2-0, and will be 3-0 after playing a Division III team this week. Their first two games were against Division IIs at home as well, so while North Dakota is without a doubt a very, very good program, their record is slightly deceiving. I would imagine for the folks that were here a few years ago when we hosted Northern Colorado right after they made the jump (ISU won 42-33), I think that's the type of team you will see in Holt Arena on Friday night.

A quick congrats to ISU volleyball coach Chad Teichert on his first collegiate win against Lamar. All the talk has been on ISU's football schedule so far, but the volleyball team has played perhaps the most brutal schedule int he country in their two tournaments so far, considering we went 6-23 last year. Three NCAA teams already, another ranked, and I think all of them were above .500 last year (I haven't checked so don't quote me on that one).

Anyways, getting a win in the final game had to make the plane flight a little smoother, and congrats also to Paige Palmer who was named All-Tournament. For those of you that don't know Paige's story (it's been in the paper a bit, but she took last season off as he fiance' battled and ultimately lost a fight to cancer). Paige has come back to the team, wearing a new number as well, and has been an inspiration for the team for sure, and has been one of the leaders.

To the links, most of which are recapping the weekend's events:

Football
Dan Thompson was a game recap (which isn't online for some reason) and a notebook on the game in Moscow. Dan's Blog goes into more casual detail, and note the comments regarding the Altitude broadcast. Certainly Dan can improve that, since he is doing some sideline reporting for this weekend's big high school deal in Holt Arena. And you can always tell the week Boise State is off because the Statesman sends out their guys to cover the other Idaho State, like Nick Jezirny and Brian Murphy. Kellis Robinett is back (after the longest wedding ever) and talks about the many Big Sky near misses on Saturday.

Soccer
The Governor's Cup is not coming back to Pocatello after losing to Boise State 2-1 and Idaho 2-0.

Who's Up Next in Football?
Here is a Bismarck Tribune report about the Fighting Sioux getting the best of Division II St. Cloud State 31-17.

Not Who You Think
After breaking the ISU receptions in a game record, Eddie Thompson had a big day, and as expected, ISU got a Player of the Week in the deal. But not Thompson. JD Ponciano was selected for the Special Teams Player of the Week after returning from a sports hernia to return four kicks for 144 yards, a 36-yard average, including returns of 60 and 44, and a return that was just 18 yards due to a face mask penalty that would have gone on for a while.

Thompson lost out to senior running back Andrew Schmidt at Montana, who in his first start rushed for 145 yards (120-something in the second half) and the eventual winning touchdown. For those that remember, Aaron Boyce of Eastern Washington had 17 catches for 230-something yards last year and also was by-passed, and before folks go crazy on the Big Sky folks, I was informed of this before hand, and I'm OK with the decision. Montana beat #11 Cal Poly, and Schmidt was a major key in that, especially with his second half. I think if Eddie had more yards per catch, he would have fared better.