BOISE, Idaho — Wednesday Weekly: June 28, 2023.
Player-run practices continue for Boise State football — a staple of summer. This is where chemistry is developed. Example: the on-field dynamic between quarterbacks and receivers. A year ago, Hank Bachmeier was running the summer show for the Broncos. And based on the first four games last season, you wonder how effective those PRPs were. Now it’s Taylen Green’s team, and he can fine-tune the connection he had already developed with the Boise State receiving corps. Every contributor from 2022 except for Davis Koetter is back. Green’s already on the same page with his fellow Texans, Latrell Caples, Stefan Cobbs and Eric McAlister. And he and Billy Bowens communicated well on the deep ball last year. Right now, Green’s able to get it going with new faces like Prince Strachan and Colorado transfer Chase Penry.
MISSING PERSON ON PHIL STEELE’S LIST
Phil Steele is supposed to be one of the most credible preseason college football analysts. His magazine is full of tiny fonts and abbreviations to save space, and it’s still over 300 pages. In this year’s edition, Steele does have Boise State’s Taylen Green as the first-team Mountain West quarterback and George Holani as a first-team running back. D.J. Schramm is the only first-teamer on defense, but that seems to be the consensus this preseason. But sometimes Steele can swing and miss, I guess. Budding Broncos star Ashton Jeanty isn’t on the first team, nor the second, nor the third, nor the fourth. That encompasses eight running backs, and Jeanty, one of the top returners in the conference, is nowhere. Jeanty, with 821 yards and seven touchdowns and a 178-yard night at the Frisco Bowl. C’mon, Phil!
THE RECRUITING CRUISE
There’s usually a flurry of commitment activity after Boise State’s football camps, whether they’re tied in with it or not. And so it goes. Cornerback Treyvon Tolmaire became the fourth prospect to give his verbal last Wednesday. Tolmaire is from Mission Viejo High, the same school as recent Broncos commit Travis Anderson. It took Tolmaire all of two days after his Boise visit to make his decision to go with the Broncos, despite an offer from Michigan. With other offers including Air Force, Army, Navy, Dartmouth and Princeton, Tolmaire has to be smart, right? The fifth commit is Roman Caywood, a two-way standout at Corner Canyon High in Utah, who gave his verbal on Tuesday night. Caywood appears to be set for the defensive side of the ball with the Broncos.
FROM THE VARSITY CENTER AND VICINITY
Ticket office news from Boise State men’s basketball: 2023-24 season tickets are now on sale to new season ticket holders, with prices starting at less than $12 per game. What, you say? Well, the balcony is available for the season for the first time (called “Leon’s Landing”). Eight sections are available. And that news from the Broncos’ front office late last week: the North End Zone renovation at Albertsons Stadium appears to be off the ground. This project is first priority over the east side improvements. The consolation is that there will be significant restroom additions and improved concessions areas, with will take pressure off the beleaguered east side. There’s also new loge seating, field-level suites, a concourse and new entrances. Construction would start in April, with completion planned for the 2025 season.
THE MW’S NO-NEWS NBA DRAFT
The NBA Draft was quiet last Thursday from a Mountain West standpoint. It was hard to find a two-round mock draft that included a player from the conference, and that played out on draft night. All this despite perhaps the Mountain West’s best season in history in 2022-23, with San Diego State having made the national championship game in April. There were lots of stars, but no superstars. And that’s fine. Top to bottom, the league was as good as it’s ever been. Symptomatic of that: the only player with any kind of draft buzz this year came from San Jose State. It was Omari Moore, the Mountain West Player of the Year, but he went undrafted. Moore scored 24 against Boise State in an overtime win in San Jose in late February, one of the Broncos’ low points of an otherwise banner season.
WE’VE SEEN THE REAL SHEEN
The Idaho Steelheads struck while the iron was hot last Friday — and coach Everett Sheen did, too. The Steelheads signed Sheen to a two-year contract extension after the team put together the winningest season in ECHL history. The Steelies figure they have now seen the real Everett Sheen. Consider what happened the previous three seasons since he took over the organization in 2019. The first campaign saw the Steelheads poised for a playoff run before the season abruptly ended the second week of March when COVID struck. Then the team opted out of the 2020-21 season due to the pandemic. The Steelheads were putting things back together in 2021-22 and missed the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. This past season Sheen, the ECHL Coach of the Year, got it right.
STEFANIC BACK AT SALT LAKE
Unfortunately, Timberline High grad Michael Stefanic missed L.A. Angels history last Saturday. Stefanic was optioned back to Triple-A Salt Lake after playing in just three games following his call-up a week and a half ago. Without him Saturday, the Angels became the first team in modern major league history to score 20-plus runs over two innings in a 25-1 trampling of the Colorado Rockies in Denver. They put up 13 runs in the third inning and eight more in the fourth to take a mind-numbing 23-0 lead, starting the third with home runs on three consecutive pitches.
HUERTA TO THE PINNACLE
The U.S. Women’s National Team was already worth watching as a favorite to win the World Cup beginning next month. Now, there will be local eyes locked in on it. Centennial High grad Sofia Huerta made the American roster announced last Thursday. Huerta has overcome the doubters, and she’s in. The 30-year-old defender, a native of Boise, has been a pro for nine seasons in the NWSL, the last three with Seattle’s OL Reign. Huerta played in five international matches with Mexico’s WNT in 2012 and 2013 before she changed her national association to the U.S. in 2017. The World Cup will be played in Australia and New Zealand, with the U.S. opening July 22 against Vietnam in Auckland.
UNPOPULAR CAMPERS?
The annual Allen & Co. “media finance retreat” in Sun Valley, the “summer camp for billionaires,” is coming up the second week of July. The gathering always features polarizing figures, and this year that includes two invitees from the sports world. It doesn’t mean they’ll attend, but one of the lightning rods is Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, who can’t wait to get the A’s out of Oakland and down to Las Vegas. He’s about as popular as A’s owner John Fisher these days. “The commissioner got the A’s a stadium deal done in Nevada, and all it cost him was his legacy, honor and moral standing,” tweeted respected writer Tim Kawakami of The Athletic. The other one is Jay Monahan, CEO of the PGA Tour. Monahan is dealing with a PR disaster after his blindsiding deal with LIV Golf on June 6.
THIS DAY IN SPORTS…June 28, 2003, 20 years ago today:
It’s the Subway Series in the Big Apple — literally. The New York Yankees and New York Mets play an unusual day-night doubleheader, with the first game at Yankee Stadium and the nightcap at Shea Stadium. The teams agreed to the unusual setup after a game between the two at Shea was rained out a week earlier. The Yanks won both contests, 7-1 in the Bronx and 9-8 in Queens. It was just the second two-park twin bill in modern major league history.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK. He also served as color commentator on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football for 14 seasons.)
Watch more on Boise State Football:
See all of our Boise State football coverage in our YouTube playlist:
HERE ARE MORE WAYS TO GET NEWS FROM KTVB:
Download the KTVB News Mobile App
Apple iOS: Click here to download
Google Play: Click here to download
Stream Live for FREE on ROKU: Add the channel from the ROKU store or by searching 'KTVB'.
Stream Live for FREE on FIRE TV: Search ‘KTVB’ and click ‘Get’ to download.