Back in the day, a Division I-A football team could finish undefeated and have a chance to win at least a piece of the national championship. No longer. The Boise State Broncos, who haven’t lost a regular season game since 2007, seemed to have gained a sniff when Oregon (who the Broncos beat in their opener) beat USC last Saturday. Instead, sportswriters gushed over Oregon’s conquest of a name program, one that can’t seem to get through its own conference without a loss, let alone its entire schedule. Even TCU seems to be getting the cachet that seems to elude Boise State.

So what can they do? Well they hired a PR firm to try and keep the buzz going. But what about their schedule? Yeah, Boise State can’t even get a road game with anybody.

The Broncos are not asking for a return game in Boise. Just one road game. And about 10 teams have turned the Broncos down, according to [WAC commissioner Karl] Benson.

“They’re running into a situation where nobody will schedule them, nobody will take them,” Benson told the Statesman’s Chadd Cripe. –Idaho Statesman.

The mindset is obvious: even a single loss in the regular season is too costly for any program. Well, any program except Boise State, whose 6 WAC titles seem to hang around their necks like medals from the Special Olympics. But I don’t blame the BCS–I blame the idealistic sportswriters that took time out of fellating Notre Dame to knock the Broncos from 5th to 8th in both human polls after blowing out Hawaii. It’s like Boise State has BCS AIDS, which would make a great toll-free hotline if anyone out there is feeling entrepreneurious at the moment. Yeah, that’s a word now. I spent the last week growing it in my dictionarium. Get over it.

UPDATE: Blount has been suspended for the year; his career as an Oregon Duck is over. There’s always the UFL, kid.

It wasn’t bad enough that Oregon had to cost me money by marching out of Boise State with a bizarre 19-8 loss on ESPN last night. No, we had to watch some senior awesomely lose any sense of composure and totally coldcock some white guy. Yeah, running back LeGarrette Bounte, who ran for 1,000 yards last year by the way, basically ruined Byron Hout’s poop before almost coming to blows with his own teammates and being restrained from fans by stadium security. Lotta pride in that feller there, and one can only speculate how severely Oregon will act to discipline him.

“I tell you what, that will never happen again,” Blount continued. “I will never lose my head again. … I should have handled that situation a lot better than I did.” via.

But let’s not forget that this whole thing was touched off by Hout slapping Blount on the shoulder pad and getting into his ear. We can see Boise State head coach Chris Petersen returning the favor before Blount delivers a Nike swoosh of his own to Hout’s chin. Should Hout be suspended for touching a guy’s shoulder pads? No, he should be suspended for running his mouth without wearing his helmet. Stupidity like that deserves a punishment all its own.

Oh, and South Carolina won last night, 7-3. No. 19 Utah also won, and the rest of the games were kinda blah. Thanks, Joel, for the vid, and you’re right: Emilio Estevez would never let his Ducks do this.

The NCAA Football Bullsh`t Subdivision opens play tonight with a nine-game slate, headlined by No. 16 Oregon heading to the blue turf in Idaho to face No. 14 Boise State. Wow, Boise State’s ranked 14th? Since when does a non-power conference school start getting plaudits from the media? Anyway, the Oregon Ducks will look to avenge a loss to the Broncos from last September, one of three games Oregon lost in 2008. If Boise State wins, it will be their 50th consecutive regular-season win at home.

The Broncos return 12 starters - six on offense, six on defense - and that’s enough to make them the favorite to win their seventh WAC title in eight years. Coach Chris Petersen, though, just wants his team to concentrate on the Ducks.

“You win enough they’re going to pay attention to you,” said Petersen, who was the receivers coach at Oregon from 1995-2000. “You step out of your conference and play teams like that and you can get something done, you’ll make more of a statement, without question.” via.

Leading off tonight is South Carolina at North Carolina State at 7 PM Eastern, along with a handful of other games you probably don’t care about, and then the big tilt kicks off at 10:15 PM Eastern. And then two games on Friday and a full slate on Saturday. Football is here, everyone. And it’s about damn time.

The college football season kicked off last night, and four ranked teams eked out victories over surprisingly tough underdogs.

• #2 LSU 45, Mississippi State 0 — MSU quarterback Michael Henig threw a costly interception that may have been the turning point in the game, because then he went on to throw five more.  He did, however, complete 11 passes to his own teammates, so that was nice.

• #10 Louisville 73, Murray State 10 — The Cardinals notched 10 touchdowns, yet Brian Brohm threw only four of them, obviously dampening the Heisman buzz.  He didn't even throw 400 yards.  Louisville scored TDs on its first eight drives and finished with 655 yards of total offense.  It's a W, for sure, but the Cards have got to be disappointed.

• #16 Rutgers 38, Buffalo 3 — Buffalo has a college now?  Aw, that's sweet.  Ray Rice ran for 184 yards and 3 scores.

• #24 Boise State 56, Weber State 7 — Last year's undefeated national champions continued where they left off, squeaking past a heavy favorite using trick plays.  Cheerleader husband Ian Johnson ran for 124 yards and three TDs.

I spent approximately 40% of my day on YouTube, searching "Boise State Fiesta" then hitting Refresh, waiting all damn day to get a good compilation of the FUCKING BANANAS series of hijinks that was Boise State-Oklahoma in last night's Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

Naturally, by the time I turned this bad boy up, the rock stars at The M Zone and We Are The Postmen (again! Bastards!) already had the video up. Oh well. You can go to them for video, but you'll be back. No one brings the T&A like I do.

Anyway, here's all the late-game excitement (save Ian Johnson's well-thought-out marriage proposal).

By the way, the most enjoyable summations I've read of the game are over at Every Say Should Be Saturday and the mighty mjd. You know, if you like reading. Nerd.

Boise State's Ian Johnson, college football's touchdown leader, is in the hospital with a partially collapsed lung.

I didn't read the whole article, but it's not exactly clear what caused the injury. The most likely scenario is that it's a sucking chest wound suffered from shrapnel as a result of an improvised explosive device (IED). In this kind of scenario, the best treatment is to seal off the wound with a piece of plastic taped down on three of four sides — that will keep the lung inflated without letting him drown in his own blood.

Wait, Boise is in Iraq, right? My geography is kind of spotty sometimes.

This injury could have serious BCS implications, as the unbeaten Bronc–HAHAHAHA. Whew. Oh man, I almost finished that one. Boise State can go 8,713-0 this season, and they'd be lucky to break into the top 10.