Boise State Football: Can Kellen Moore Lead the Broncos to the BCS Title Game?

As Boise State QB Kellen Moore sat in the front row at the Best Buy Theater in Manhattan last December, watching up close as Cam Newton reached his dream of winning the Heisman Trophy, Moore must have silently wondered to himself if there would ever come a time when he received the true recognition he deserved.

All Kellen Moore has done in his three-year career at Boise State, is go 38-2 as a starter, throw for over 10,000 yards and lead his team to a top-10 final ranking twice.

And yet, even after finishing fourth in the Heisman voting last year, Moore is still one of the most debated and doubted players in all of college football.

He’s too small.

He doesn’t have a big arm.

He doesn’t play real competition.

Moore’s heard it all, especially from some of the holier-than-thou SEC folks who love to discount everything associated with Boise State every chance they get.

The senior signal caller has endured plenty of heat from his critics and doubters, but Moore’s taken it upon himself to properly respond in the only way he really knows how.

He wins.

Whether you want to trot out Virginia Tech or Oregon, or Utah State or San Jose State, the opponent doesn’t matter to Moore and the rest of his Bronco brethren.

Since coach Chris Petersen took over after the 2005 season, Boise State has made a habit out of destroying and embarrassing their so-called weaker competition .

During Petersen’s tenure, the Broncos have averaged 12 wins per season for the last five years. And for the last three years that Moore has been at the helm, the Broncos have managed to beat opponents by an average score of 41-13.

Petersen was lucky to find a somewhat unlikely face for his program’s rise to national prominence and Moore ended up becoming the perfect poster boy for a team that has yet to be fully embraced and endorsed by the mass college football crowd.

No matter how many convincing wins the Broncos keep piling up, it doesn’t seem to change the public's perception that Boise’s just a big fish that became the bully of a small pond.

Well, maybe that will change now that the team is taking a step up from the WAC to the Mountain West this season.

Sure, the Mountain West took a few big hits due to realignment, losing both Utah and BYU for the upcoming season and TCU after this year. But the conference will still offer up some tough tests for the boys from Boise.

TCU, Air Force and San Diego State, three teams that combined for 31 wins in 2010, won’t be in a very welcoming mood when they face off against Petersen’s crew this season.

TCU has already had a few recent memorable battles with the Broncos in the 2008 Poinsettia Bowl and the 2009 Fiesta Bowl. 

Now it’s time for a grudge match to break the 1-1 tie.

Boise State’s slate not only includes some tough conference matchups, it also has a fair share of out-of-conference clashes that surely won't be easy.

Nevada, the team that shattered Boise’s BCS dreams last season, will be looking to take down their former/future conference foe once again, and Fresno State will be in search of some payback after getting pounded by the Broncos for three straight years.

Still, there’s no statement game on Boise's 2011 schedule that can compare to the showdown with the Georgia Bulldogs in Atlanta to start off the season.

It may seem like ages ago, but that 48-13 beat down in Athens back in 2005 still probably stings a bit and you better believe the Broncos will be hoping for better results as they head back down to SEC country to kick off the 2011 season.

This will be the third-straight, showcase-season kickoff game for Boise State.

The Broncos took down top-10 ranked Virginia Tech in a thriller in Washington D.C. to cap off the first weekend of the 2010 season and they shut down eventual Pac-10 champion Oregon on the blue turf back in 2009.

This year’s schedule is shaping up to be the most challenging that Moore, Petersen and the rest of the Boise bunch have ever faced. But the big blue machine appears ready to do battle with all comers.

Moore will certainly miss the presence of Titus Young and Austin Pettis, his two top receivers from a year ago. But he’ll have plenty of help on offense with the return of RB Doug Martin, who ran for over 1,200 yards and 12 TDs last season, as well as dependable receiver Tyler Shoemaker, who averaged over 18 yards per catch in 2010.

It also won’t hurt that Moore will have one of the nation’s top offensive lines, led by All-American tackle Nate Potter and seasoned veteran center Thomas Byrd, keeping him safe.

The scary part is, the Boise State defense should be just as dominant as the offense.

DT Billy Winn, DE Shea McLellin and S George Iloka are all legitimate NFL prospects who definitely don’t fit into the "overachiever" mold often associated with Boise State players.

Winn is one of the most talented defensive tackles in the nation and he was one of the main reasons opposing offenses couldn’t muster up any kind of running game last year.

This is a Boise State squad that returns 14 starters from a team that went 12-1 last season and the Broncos seem to be loaded with all of the right weapons in all of the right places.

The schedule will be tough, there’s no question about that. But with Moore back on stage for one more final performance, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility to think that Boise State can finally break through and make it to the BCS national championship game this season.

They’ve been standing on the doorstep for long enough and it could ultimately be time to let them join the party.

Moore won’t challenge Stanford’s Andrew Luck for the No. 1 pick in next year's NFL draft, and he probably won’t throw for as many yards as Oklahoma’s Landry Jones but, in the end, that may not matter.

Kellen Moore is focused on one thing and one thing only, and that’s winning.

The senior QB now stands just eight wins shy of college football’s all-time wins record, which is currently held by Colt McCoy.

Moore should have no problem rewriting the record books this year. And if he can somehow match the magic from the previous three seasons, he just might be able to finally take Boise to the big game in his swan song campaign.