Mark Schlabach, an ESPN college football columnist recently finished an article in which he ranked the preseason top 25 college football teams for the 2010-2011 season. I’ve read many of Mark’s articles and I respect what he has to say so I took a look at his list. At first nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, the top five included such powers as Alabama, Ohio State, Texas, and Virginia Tech. Then it struck me why the rankings seemed so strange; the Boise State Broncos were listed as the preseason 2nd best team in the country ranked ahead of college football royalty such as Florida, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Texas, and Miami [FL].

This made me wonder how a school from the WAC conference, which plays in a stadium with a meager seating capacity of 33,610, and plays in a market such as Boise, Idaho could ascend so high up the college football ladder.

I decided to investigate just how Boise State had assembled a team talented enough to be ranked ahead of Ohio State and Texas. The first thing I looked at was recruiting. Any college football coach will tell you that recruiting is “the life blood of your program”. You can have the greatest game plans and coaching staffs, but if you are playing with second tier players while your opponent has elite talent then nine out of ten times it will be a very long day for your squad.

Rivals.com is widely considered to be the leader when it comes to evaluating and ranking high school football talent. The top rating a high school recruit can get is a ranking of 5 stars. A five star ranking means that the player is one of the top prospects in the country, has the ability to make an impact immediately when he steps on campus, and has the potential to skip out on his senior year and play on Sunday’s in the NFL.

I decided to look at how many five star recruits Alabama, Boise State, Ohio State, Texas, and Virginia Tech had signed over the course of the last four years and here were the results:

Alabama- 8 five star recruits

Boise State- No five star recruits and only one four star recruit

Ohio State- six five star recruits

Texas- seven five star recruits

Virginia Tech- one five star recruit

According to the recruiting experts it would be unrealistic for Boise to hang with their fellow preseason top five members; at least according to the caliber of players that come to play for them.

Then I thought that if it wasn’t the caliber of players then they had to have one of the highest paid and recognizable head coaches in college football along with stellar assistants. So I took I look at the salaries of the head coaches at the top five schools and how they compared to each other.

Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban- $3,900,000.00

Boise State Head Coach Chris Peterson- $900,000.00

Ohio State Head Coach Jim Tressell-$3,500,000.00

Texas Head Coach Mack Brown-$2,910,000.00

Virginia Tech Head Coach Frank Beamer- $2,100,000.00

If it wasn’t bad enough that these schools are getting all the top prospects in the country they also have some of the highest paid head coaches in the country (the best in the business). While Chris Peterson’s salary at Boise State is smaller than Vanderbilt’s Bobby Johnson and Minnesota’s Tim Brewster, I’m still checking to see whether Tressell and Saban have their starters make the trips up to Minneapolis and Nashville for these games.

I finally thought about facilities and the amount of alumni and large donations that go into each school. I didn’t talk the time to compute the difference in donor money that Alabama and Texas receive compared to Boise.

I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t figure out how the Boise State Bronco’s could compete at such a high level when the power schools in college football appeared to be holding every card in the deck. How did Boise State beat an Adrian Peterson led Oklahoma Sooner team in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl? How did Boise State beat an Oregon team the last two years that is backed by the founder of NIKE Phil Knight?

Finally, I took a second look at the final part of the definition for what I defined a five star prospect to be. I said he has the potential to skip out on his senior year and play on Sunday’s. What comes with players that are so high profile and talented that they leave their school and team to cash in on draft day early? Maybe in some cases a large ego and the presence of others that are talking to players about non team activities is not the best thing in the world. The NCAA is investigating whether Florida offensive lineman Maurkice Pouncey took $100,000.00 before the Gators Sugar Bowl matchup with Cincinnati. That doesn’t seem like a problem Boise State would have. The lack of outside sources (agents, entourages), off the field trouble, and larger than life egos are all things that once again Boise State lacks that the traditional college football powers have. Maybe that is why Boise State is in the position they are in though.

The more I think about it I don’t think the Boise State coaching staff is focusing on how highly rated their players are by recruiting sites. I think that instead of finding individual talent they are focused on finding players that can fit in their system and meet the criteria of what it means to be a Bronco. Boise State has lost seventeen games during the past decade and they have done it by adhering to a specific blueprint on how to build a successful program. This blueprint is far different than the ones Alabama, Ohio State, Texas, and Virginia Tech use but it certainly works for them. Their success lies in their firm commitment to a team atmosphere and the belief that no one player is bigger than the team.

Boise is no one hit wonder and the credit of a #2 preseason ranking is far overdue. Almost no one could fathom how Butler could’ve been one last second half court heave from beating Duke in the men’s national title game. Don’t be surprised if Boise State is in a similar situation on January 10th in Glendale Arizona. Butler made it that far by doing it the “Butler way” and Boise State will try to make it that far doing it the “Boise way”.

Thoughts comments opinions

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