Why I Hate Boise State - A Treatise

"THE GOGGLES! THEY DO NOTHING!"

No, before you ask, this isn’t one of my rare sports oriented blogs. Yes, some of the subject matter involves sports, and sports, namely football, ignited and continually stoke the fires of my rage, but to say that me explaining why Boise State sucks is a sports centric update is the epitome of not seeing the forest for the trees.

Hating Boise State isn’t about sports, it’s about common goddamn decency. It’s about not hoisting mediocrity up as excellence. It’s about knowing what fucking color certain things should be, and fighting to preserve those standards.

Here’s what I’m saying: Boise State, you’re damn lucky there’s a fourth Indiana Jones movie and the University of Washington in the world, because if not, you would top out my list of most hated things. But keep up this behavior and hey, who knows? Maybe you’ll climb the ladder a bit.

Item 1: Your Field Is A Catastrophe Wrapped In An Abortion

Look, I don’t have any problem with the color blue, in and of itself. It’s a friendly looking color. Water is blue, and anything that keeps me from dying of dehydration is A-OK in my book (except orange Gatorade, which I could do without).

But you see, football fields are green.

Football fields have an illustrious history of being green – back in the pre-AstroTurf days, football was played on grass, which tends to be greenish in color. Then, when artificial turf fields were invented, they made them in various shades of green, so that when people watched a football game it looked like they were watching a game being played on grass.

I suppose this all seems a bit obvious and on the nose, but I feel like it’s something I need to explain slowly since clearly some people don’t understand, as Boise State plays all their football games on a field that looks like a fucking swimming pool with yardlines on it surrounded by a red clay track, just like the one that surrounded the (green) football field at my high school.

Just because the NCAA doesn’t prevent you from doing something doesn’t necessarily mean that you should do it. The only reason this travesty exists is because in the mid 1980s Boise State’s athletic director replaced the green turf with blue in an attempt to, and this is a direct quote, “give the school some notoriety.”

When I was in kindergarten, there was a kid who sat next to me who once wet his pants in a desperate cry for attention. The only difference I see between that kid and Boise State is that Kirk Herbstreit didn’t claim his piss-stained jeans were a BCS contender.

Item 2: Big Fish, Small Pond Full Of Small Fish Who Can’t Play Football

Here’s Boise State’s football schedule for last year’s season, when they went undefeated:

Oregon - 19-8 W
Miami (Ohio) - 48-0 W
Fresno State – 51-34 W
Bowling Green – 49-14 W
UC Davis – 34-16 W
Tulsa – 28-21 W
Hawaii – 54-9 W
San Jose State – 45-7 W
Louisiana Tech 45-35 W
Idaho – 63-25 W
Utah State – 52-21 W
Nevada – 44-33 W
New Mexico State – 42-7 W

Look, to be honest, I didn’t even know some of these schools existed until I looked at this schedule, which, after game one, looks like a list of ‘Potential Safety Schools’ posted in a guidance counselor’s office. I mean, what the hell, people – Bowling Green? That sounds more like a lesbian alternative rock duo than a school, and from a look at the scores for some of these games it seems like two lesbians with acoustic guitars would mount a far more robust offense than some of these schools’ football programs.

You know, I wish my life was more like Boise State’s football schedule: I wish I only had to do one difficult thing every year, and then could just spend the rest of my time eating nachos and masturbating. I mean, yeah, I’d have to apply myself briefly for as long as it took to restore that 18th century armoire or whatever, but then I’d be done, nachos all heating up in the oven, Spice Channel membership all paid up and ready to go.

The thing is, if that was my life, I wouldn’t demand recognition and respect for my ability to restore armoires.* I wouldn’t claim that I had been passed over for praise and awards because of some sort of bias. I’d recognize that if I wanted recognition as a world class armoire restorer, I’d need to start restoring more than one armoire every year.

*I would, however, demand respect for my nacho cooking and masturbational abilities, both of which I imagine would be top notch after all that practice.

The same goes for football. Yes, Boise State manages to beat their one real opponent every year, but that’s all they ever have to prepare for, isn’t it? Football is about quantity, not quality – and yet for some reason, there’s this entrenched, stupid minority which believes that Boise State’s ability to play a real football team once per season entitles them to go to the BCS Championship.

Item 3: Cowboy Up!

So after Boise State had heard my argument about the weakness of their conference enough, they grumbled a bunch and announced that they were looking to change conferences.

Great! We all thought. Boise State will come on over to the Pac-10 and play some real teams on a regular basis and promptly be exposed for the slightly above average team that they are.

And then it was announced – Boise State will be moving from the WAC to the Mountain West. And my reaction was, “What, there’s another shitty conference on the West Coast?”

As it turns out, the Mountain West is generally considered a stronger conference than the WAC due to the presence of stronger football programs like Utah and Colorado. Of course, as of next year, Utah and Colorado will be joining the Pac-10 to create the Pac-12, leaving the Mountain West with powerhouses like UNLV (5-7 in 2009) and University of New Mexico, which has such a strong defense that they only allowed a 72 point shutout in their season opener against Oregon.

The only school even remotely worth it’s salt in the Mountain West is Brigham Young, thanks to a squad of larger-than-average football players who delayed college by a couple of years for their mission trips and a coaching staff that probably doesn’t have to spend a lot of time trying to keep their players away from bars, drugs, and loose, chokeable women.

So after all this noise, Boise State changes conferences, and effective next year they’ll start playing two good teams every year instead of just one.

Maybe in 100 years or so they’ll have eased themselves, good opponent by good opponent, into a legitimate football schedule. And when that day comes, if they’re able to contend with the sort of weekly play that basically every other school has since Earnest T. Football invented the sport back in 768 AD, they just might get bumped off my shit list.

But only if they change that fucking turf.

Truman Capps made it through this whole update without saying anything derisive about Idaho. Perhaps he’s losing his touch.