.......Respect My Recant.....

Okay, my foot is in my mouth, and I have no problem taking it in front of the world or the several thousand fans that visit my website.

Basically, I called Boise State a heartless team.

I called them heartless because I felt the team should have done something to Lagarrette Blount when he clocked their teammate. I mean, they simply watched Blount swing, connect, back up, dare someone else to do something and he simply walked off the field scot-free.

My opinion on that incident hasn't changed. I still think they should have done something, but that's neither here nor there.

The matter at hand is this, to the 2009 Boise State Bronco football team, I apologize for calling you heartless. You've always had my respect regardless of my remarks, but you gained even more of it with your play last night.

You essentially clobbered a TCU team that everyone in America outside of Idaho expected to win. Although 17-10 doesn't exactly sound like a clobbering, given TCU's athleticism, you clobbered them.

I still feel like TCU was the more athletic team, but Boise State hit them in the mouth. TCU tried to fight back, but Boise State just had more heart. You saw this especially when the TCU offense and Boise State defense was on the field. 

TCU's offensive players were out of sync all game long. Their receivers were shook and dropped passes. Their offensive line was dominated and barely fought back. Quarterback Andy Dalton rarely had any time to throw. When he did have time to throw, his clear lack of arm strength showed.

I had no clue how weak his arm was and realized why people are so enamored with arm strength. If you can't throw the deep out in the pros, you are in trouble. Dalton can't even throw the deep out at the college level. When he was able to get the ball to his receivers, they were covered and balls were broken up as well as the receivers' morale.

The TCU defense didn't back down, and virtually kept the prolific Boise State offense without a touchdown until the fourth quarter when Boise pulled another trick play in a BCS game. It was a beautifully run fake punt-pass over the middle to the tight end. The momentum swing after that play killed the TCU defense for a brief moment, and Boise got the go-ahead score.

We all knew the TCU defense was going to come to play, and they did. It was the much overhyped and newly invented TCU offense that everyone was praising. It seemed as if TCU wanted to out throw Boise State.

Why would you want to out throw Boise State? You clearly have one of the best defenses in the nation, and you throw the ball 44 times and run it only eight? I refuse to listen to "TCU couldn't run the ball." Running the ball requires the will of all the people involved, coaches included.

Even if you are only getting two and three yards a clip, stick to the running game because your bigger and more athletic team will prevail. I feel like TCU panicked when Boise State's defense fought back. Scratch that—not fought back—just bullied them, took their lunch money and wasn't giving it back, even if the principal told them to.

Boise State showed a lot of heart last night: More than TCU and more than I ever thought they had.

I was wrong, bottom line.

That's all I got,

Ricky Writer

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