Pyle of List

If you’re a big college football fan, chances are you were watching the first game of the season, a Thursday night match-up between Boise State and Oregon on the blue turf.  It became famous not so much for the beat-down the Broncos put on the Ducks but for the post-game incident where Legarrette Blount punched a player and then went loco, which let to an “indefinite” suspension.  (He was later reinstated but still did not play for two games, finally running the ball against Oregon State and giving the team a real spark with a much-needed touchdown.)

It was repeated ad nauseum, so it’s impossibly to forget.  But for a moment, I want you to pretend that it never happened.  In fact, I want you to pretend the game against Boise State never happened.  That is, imagine that it was scheduled as the LAST game of the season for both teams.

Oregon would have gone into the match-up with the following per-game averages:  449 yards, 22 first downs, 254 rushign yards, 194 passing yards, and 40 points.  Along the way they would have EMBARRASSED perennial PAC-10 champ USC to become the new Rose Bowl representatives.  Yes, they would have suffered a loss, but it was a loss in which they scored 42 points and gained 570 yards.  Offense was not a problem.

Then Boise State totally shuts them down.  Only six first downs (none in the first half).  Only 152 total yards (31 rushing yards).  And a mere 8 points scored in the final four and a half minutes.

Obviously this is just pure speculation.  No one can say whether Boise State would have been able to stop Oregon if they had already gotten their offense rolling.  (My personal opinion is that Boise still might have won, but not in the same way.)  And most of those yards rushing were gained by LaMichael James, who would not have been the starter without Blount’s departure.  Finally, saying “what if this game had happened here instead of there” is sort of a pointless exercise to begin with.

So instead of asking that, I’d like to ask: What if the Blount incident had not happened?  What if, pissed as he was, he’d just walked off the field, gave some inappropriate media comments, apologized for those, and played the rest of the season.  Would Oregon have been the same?  And how would it have affected Boise State?

 Boise State: Whenever the Oregon game was brought up during the rest of the season, the Blount Punch seemed to be the main focus.  And if anyone did talk about how the Broncos totally shut down the Duck offense, the phrase “but they weren’t the same team then” was said more often than not.  There’s a lot of truth to this statement, as many teams get better as the season goes on.  In Oregon’s case, it was even more true as they were quite literally not the same team, since they now featured a different running back as the main rushing threat.

But I think the statement only truly works in regards to a team losing to an “inferior” opponent.  Not a terrible team that they had no business losing to, but a semi-respectable team that finished with a far worse record than them.  (For instance, last year’s USC and Oregon State or Florida and Ole Miss.)  It doesn’t work the same when talking about a team that has not only a better record but is UNDEFEATED.

And this is where Boise State got burned.  Too much attention went to what happened with Blount and the speculation about whether he’d serve a punishement at all, and if so, how severe it would be.  The Broncos became second fiddle to the juvenile actions of a frustrated player, a player who was so frustrated because the Broncos held him to NEGATIVE FIVE YARDS.  If they were going to talk about Blount’s anger, they should have mentioned the awesome performance by the Boise State defense that helped spark it.  (Yes, the trash talking was involved too, but Blount had already dished it out prior to the game.  As the old saying goes, “Don’t dish it out and then punch someone in the face.”)

Even if the punch had never happened, Boise State was never going to get the credit they deserved for this win.  Even after Oregon’s loss to Stanford, several computers and even some (ignorant) human beings were ranking them above the Broncos.  The perception would have changed dramatically if Oregon had had its huge season before the Boise State game rather than after.  Of course, Boise State’s ceiling was only so high anyways.  It’s not as if the game being at the end of the season would have gotten them into the national championship game.  They’d probably be ranked higher than sixth though.

Oregon: Chip Kelly’s first game as head coach couldn’t have gone much worse.  When you’re a famed offensive coordinator and your team suddenly can’t generate any offense, it’s bad.  When the performance is so atrocious that fans are already writing off the rest of the season, it’s really bad.  But when your star running back punches a guy then has to be restrained from going after fans, it’s a public relations nightmare.

Oregon was in a good-to-great situation when Kelly took over, so he wasn’t a frog that jumped into boiling water.  He was more like a frog who was resting on a nice comfortably lily pad that had boiling water poured over him.  But he didn’t jump out.  He stood his ground.  That would kill most frogs.  But not Chip Kelly.  It seemed to make him stronger.

It gave him a chance to show where he stood as a coach.  He didn’t tolerate Blount’s actions by tossing a couple of game suspensions on him and being done with it.  But at the same time, he didn’t completely sever ties with him, allowing him to continue to practice with the team.  This showed his players that he was stern and would dole out punishment but that he also cared about them and wanted them to succeed.  It would have been much easier to follow one extreme or the other.  Ignore the people calling for Blount’s head (I’ll admit, I was included in that mix.) and let him play again as soon as possible.  Or forget he was ever part of the team so you can concentrate on who’s left and not have to deal with the questions of whether or not he’s going to play again.

Kelly chose the middle ground, and in this case, that was the right call.  Blount learned his lesson but still had a chance to make up for what he did.  And he still has a chance at a future.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t skeptical about whether he’s truly put his obvious anger issues behind him, but he definitely has a much brighter outlook for his life than if he’d been completely kicked off the team.

Meanwhile, the players had a choice of how they would respond to what was now the national perception; that they were a mediocre team and sore losers to boot.  Though they were wins, the two follow-up games weren’t exactly offensive successes.  (They needed two defensive TDs to beat Purdue by 2 points, and Masoli went 4 of 16 passing against Utah.)  But by the time they played Cal, they had bonded as a unit and were pretty much unstoppable on the offensive side of the ball.

Might they have responded the same way if they had still suffered a crushing loss but there had been no post-game altercation?  Perhaps.  Blount would have undoubtedly worked hard to prove he was a good running back.  But without the punch, their game ceases to be the focal point after the opening weekend.  As it was, it remained one of the main headlines for a few weeks, which served as a reminder to the Ducks that people didn’t think they were very good.

There’s also the chance that Blount just wouldn’t have had a very successful season.  He’s a very different type of back than James, so maybe offenses would have had an easier time controlling him.

And without his off-the-field travails, his touchdown against Oregon State would have been just another score.  Instead it was the motivational kick-start the Ducks needed to get back into the game against the Beavers.

So between that, the success of LaMichael James, and the way the team had to respond to all of the negative criticism, the best thing Blount did for the Ducks might have been suckerpunching someone.