Quick Observations from Boise St/VT

I got a last minute chance to go to the Boise St/Virginia Tech game as a neutral observer last night. Here's what I saw.

1) Ryan Williams and Tyrod Taylor are scary explosive, but not more so than Titus Young. All three made me hold my breath every time they tucked it under and took off. Titus Young is fearless. Ryan Williams started soft, got rolling in the middle of the game, but didn't finish well. And he beat my fantasy team.

2) Tyrod Taylor has made a lot of progress and will be very good this season, but he's still not a passing quarterback. He made good decisions and really gave Boise headaches. He also made a lot of good throws, but he throws a soft ball. He rarely tried to zip a ball through a seam, and when he did try, he failed.

3) This game was not about a national championship for Boise St fans. I got the tickets from a friend of a friend of a guy from Idaho, so I was in the Boise section, and not once did I hear anyone mention a national championship. Two BCS bowls wins later, it was still about getting some R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

4) Boise fans travel. Boise St averages 33,000 or so for home games. I estimated 15,000+ folks in blue and orange in FedEx field last night. And I can't imagine Boise has a ton of transplants now living in DC. Very impressive. Of course, if I were Boise born and raised, I would have sold the family potato farm to be there.

5) Virginia Tech has the widest distribution in the quality of their fans. A guy a few spots down from me got urinated on in the bathroom, he had beer thrown on him (I was able to enjoy the alcoholic shower as well), and had at least a dozen VT fans after the game shake his hand and congratulate him for a good win. Completely despicable on one end and very respectable on the other. The only other time I've seen so many fans congratulate opposing fans was Nebraska, and they had a couple recent national championships at the time.

6) I can live with what VT did with the unis, but whoever's responsible for putting Boise in those monstrosities should be fired very quickly. My understanding is that these are the new Nike unis. Hideous and stupid. First, the Bronco logo on the helmet looks Arena League. Second, orange on blue is a very distinctive color scheme that Boise wears well. What advantage does it give you, in appearance, in recruiting, in merchandise sales, to abandon that?