Day Eight, Daily Diary: ‘Road to Athens’

 Following every day of fall camp this month, The Arbiter’s sports editor, Trevor Horn will be providing a daily look into camp as the Boise State football program gears up for the 2005 season, and their preparation to the Sept. 3 opener in Athens, Ga. versus Georgia.

The Broncos are ranked in the preseason for the first time in school history at 19 in the USA Today/Coaches Poll. Today, the players were treated to a day of decks, and even a lowly reporter took a stab at one too.

The Broncos took the morning practice off on Monday in order to review film from Sunday night’s scrimmage. There were a lot of bright spots on the offensive side of the ball—part of the reason why tackling and ball stripping was the focus early on in the afternoon practice.

Specialty positions lined up against each other to practice five-yard tackling drills during a longer than usual practice. The highlight of the drill was when 6 feet, 4 inch freshman receiver Aiona Key lined up across from freshman defensive back Ellis Powers. Key, who will high jump for the Boise State track team, leaped right over Powers as the defensive back crouched down for the tackle. A lot of oohs and ahs came after the leap, but so did the target on Key’s chest. The next time he came up, he was lined up against Ashlei Nyong-Dunham—who is considered pound-for-pound one of the biggest hitters on the team. Key ran over Dunham, but he called Key out to go again. This time Dunham showed why people say he’s a hard hitter, as he knocked Key on his backside.

The temperature was a bit warmer than it had been for about three or four days, and it was apparent as Daryn Colledge and Jeff Cavender both dipped their helmets into a bucket of ice water to cool down a bit.

Monday was also marked the second time the Broncos ran decks in fall camp. Once again it was midway through the practice, but this time it was during the hottest part of the day, not at 10:30 a.m.

Wes Nurse, who is now a graduate assistant for the coaching staff ran the decks with the players as the other coaches ran the stairs in the upper deck of Bronco Stadium.

Funny thing happened following. Coach Hawkins came over to the three of us media guys and joked that we needed to run decks with the team. So, I decided to try my hand at it. Wearing flip-flops, I was not dressed for the challenge, but I decided to run one deck. Let me tell you, it’s not as easy as it sounds. It is not like running on a stair-stepper. Each bleacher is a long lunge on a steep incline. I all the credit in the world to the offensive lineman who ran 20 decks this summer—they are true athletes.

Junior cornerback Marcosus Le Blanc’s big hits in Sunday’s scrimmage sure didn’t go unnoticed by the coaching staff. Despite not being on the preseason depth chart, Le Blanc ran with the 1’s during the afternoon practice.

Just as a disclaimer. I am going to attempt to run four decks tomorrow morning, so if there is no Day 9 Diary—you as readers have been forewarned.