Mike Riley and the Beavers are Hoping to Make More Than the Field Blue in Boise on Saturday

Mike Riley and the Beavers are Hoping to Make More Than the Field Blue in Boise on Saturday

There are a lot of good college games this weekend and some of them have National Championship implications. One of the marquee games on the menu is Boise State and Oregon State. The last time the Broncos were in the spotlight, they shined bright and showed that they should be in the conversation for the National Championship. This looks to be the last hurdle in the way of Boise State’s undefeated season. You can say what you want to about Boise State and people all around the country have an opinion. They have silly uniforms, their blue jersey’s match the color of their field, and they run some crazy plays on offense at times. All those things are correct, but they also happen to have a collection of talent that is as good as any team in college football. It looks like there is just one team that can keep the Broncos from finishing  undefeated and that’s Oregon State.

The Beavers have taken this game seriously, even going as far as painting their practice field blue to get ready for the “smurf turf” that awaits them on Saturday night. The Beavers are game. They bring a top 25 team to Boise, but it might not be enough. It’s not the blue turf that makes Boise State so good, although they have won 56 straight regular season games at home. After all, they beat Virginia Tech on Labor Day playing on grass. It’s their high powered offense led by Heisman Trophy candidate Kellen Moore, their staunch defense, and their coaching staff that make the Broncos a National Championship contender.Mike Riley joined KJR in Seattle with Dave “Softy” Mahler to talk about whether or not they are ready for Saturday against Boise State, confirms that Oregon State did paint the practice field blue, on what makes Boise State so good, whether or not they recruited Kellen Moore out of high school, and talks about the idea that Boise State is a National Championship contender.

On whether or not they are ready for Saturday night against Boise State:

“We are just about ready. I always say, we’ll use every minute to get ready. It’s Thursday which is always a great day of practice for the Beavers. It’s kinda dress rehearsal day. It’s fun, it’s exciting, we’ve been in two big arenas here early in the year and I think it’s been real good for our team to have to get ready for these games.”

On whether or not it is true that they painted their practice field blue:

“(Laughing) Yes we did. I have to give the credit for the idea to Bob De Carolis our Athletic Director. He thought about this a long time ago. I thought it was kind of a publicity stunt at first, but when we did it and it really matches their color and we haven’t done everything on it, it was just one of the grass fields that we have, but it really kinda feels different when you walk on their field in Boise. It was just like this. People pipe in music and they do different stuff to get ready for games. This is really just fun at emphasis is what it is. It’s nothing more than that.”

On what makes Boise State so good:

“There’s three of them really. First of all offensively, their balance. People think about Boise and they remember the trick plays against Oklahoma and they still have the bag of tricks, but they are a powerful running football team and do it very well. They scheme their runs great and the play action off of them. So that balance is hard. Then defensively they are very well schooled and coached, have good players, and are tenacious. That team plays hard on defense. Then Special teams they give you all the stuff. They punt the ball and have every punt formation that you can think of. It’s one of those games where you have to be very sound, very aware, very focused, and then play like crazy for 60 minutes.”

On whether or not Oregon State recruited Kellen Moore:

“We did recruit him, but we never did offer him because we already had a quarterback committed. When you look at a guy that has that much productivity like he had at Prosser, you’ve gotta take a look at him and he was obviously a good player. In recruiting it comes down, maybe Washington, I know we did, I think we had a quarterback committed or we were pretty far along and we usually have quite a few quarterbacks come down in June and be part of our camp and it was part of that process. We were excited about him because he was such a good player, but it just worked out with another guy and I don’t remember who it might’ve been. He wasn’t overly impressive size wise, but he was just a player. He has proven that more and more while being at Boise. He could very well be the most efficient player in the country.”

On the idea that Boise State is a National Championship contender:

“Here’s the deal, I think you can’t fault them for their conference. They’re in what they are in. They’ve won their big games that they have been in and they have good players. I was talking to a pro scout the other day and they’ve got a lot of prospects. They’re an old team now, they’ve got just about everybody back from last year so they’ve got good players, they’ve won, we want to derail this thing, but they’ve won their big games, and dominated their conference. I look at their team, if I was to sit down and compare and contrast, it’s impossible to try and do that probably, but if you did, you would have to say that this team fits where they are.”