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“Black Eye on the Blue Carpet for Red & Black”

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“Rocky-Ball”…..it was vintage Rocky Long football for San Diego State, an important early season win at Boise State.

Run the ball, punch you in the mouth defense, and an impressive SDSU (19-13) win on the Blue Carpet. This against a Boise State team that was (109-7) at home since 2000, and two of those losses have come from Long and his Aztecs.

This was all about the bye week and intense preparation, pulling pages out of the back of the playbook, no one had seen all year, especially panic-struck Broncos QB-Brett Rypien.

Blitzes, they came from everywhere. LB blitzes, safety blitzes, zone blitzes dropping lineman and sending backers. You could see the look in Rapine’s eyes, where’s it coming from, where my receivers, when am In going to get hit? It was like the Aztecs were playing CFL rules, with 12-on the field.

Rypien was confused by what he saw at the line of scrimmage. Rypien couldn’t find open receivers against complex coverages. Rypien held the ball, he got hit, he got knocked out of rhythm, he was pulled twice from the game, he threw into double and triple coverage.

And the Aztecs did this against a team averaging (538Y) per game, and a quarterback who had a (12-0) touchdown to interception ratio.

Boise coach Brian Harsin never saw this coming, and couldn’t adjust. Boise never went to slant passes, hot receivers, or crossing patterns, when the blitzes kept coming. His quarterback fell apart, but this is as much on the coaching staff as anyone.

There’s all kind of stats you can look at in this most impressive win. The Jordan Byrd 72-yard TD run on the jet sweep, never used all year. The 7-hits on the Broncos QBs and the four sacks. The 3-takeaways.

How about this one? In 16-possession, Boise’s high octane offense, had 1-long scoring drive, in 16-possessions. Equally impressive, a (6-for-19) day for Boise on 3rd down, All this from a Broncos team that was averaging 42-points a game, and 48-percent on third down conversions.

State won despite 7-penalites on its offensive lineman, and doing this with a backup quarterback, running back, fullback, and an injured top defensive lineman. They survived 4-sacks on their own QB-Ryan Agnew, and 7-times he was pressured out of the pocket.

In the tradition of the history of ‘Linebackers R-Us’…here came young inside LB-Kyalvo Tezino, who was here-there-everywhere, and treated Rypien like a rag doll with so many hits.

Long spent last week telling me he was concerned about Boise’s formations, 1-back, no backs, pistol, spread, five wide and the groups they used in those packages. No problem because he was going to spend the bye week devising defensive packages Boise couldn’t handle.

Old school football. Run it, hit them, confuse the quarterback, run downhill,and hit and hit and hit.

What a team win, more importantly, what a game plan by that coaching staff.

It was ‘Big Boy Football’ at its best. A big win too in a place no one hardly wins.

It was vintage Rocky-Ball.

The Red & Black giving a black eye to the Broncos on the blue carpet.

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