Boise State's value of experience

Here is a really good article from ESPN The Magazine senior writer Tim Keown.  

Wonder why the Broncos are so good? They've been together for years

The 2010 Boise State Broncos might be one of the most experienced teams in college football history.

Austin Pettis remembers nothing. It's tricky to explain, because this kind of nothing was a presence, not an absence. It invaded the Boise State Broncos' huddle as 11 Broncos came together to face the 56 yards that lay ahead with 1:47 remaining and the then-No. 10 Virginia Tech Hokies leading by four in the season-opening game. This nothing meant something.

The huddle felt hermetically sealed. No sounds -- not a thing -- seeped in from a mostly hostile crowd of more than 86,000. Inside, breathing was measured and doubt nonexistent as the world narrowed to 11 guys and 56 yards. To get there -- and they did get there, in all of 38 seconds -- the Broncos relied on feeling nothing. Pettis shrugs. It's hard to explain how those experiencing something extraordinary define it by its ordinariness. It was just another two-minute drill, like the ones he and his teammates had run at practice every Wednesday afternoon for the past three years. 

"It was the big stage, but it didn't feel like it," says the senior wideout. "It just felt like, I don't know, like what we do. Experience leads to confidence."

Nothing came from something. The Broncos, as a team, have the broadest and widest frame of reference in college football. An FBS-best 91.7 percent of lettermen returned from last year (compared to a national average of 70.4 percent), and Boise State returned more of its yards gained (99.3 percent) and tackles made (94.9 percent) than everybody else, too. On the NCAA's list of active career leaders there's a Bronco ranked in the top 10 in passing yards (Kellen Moore), receiving TDs (Pettis), points scored (kicker Kyle Brotzman), interceptions (CB Brandyn Thompson) and sacks (DE Ryan Winterswyk). 

How deep are the Broncos? Second-team All-WAC RB Jeremy Avery had four 100-yard games as a junior last year, and now he backs up rising sophomore Doug Martin. Sophomore receiver Kirby Moore, Kellen's brother, played in 13 games (including two starts) as a true frosh, caught two TD passes -- and found out the week of the Virginia Tech game that he would be redshirting this year. With the team's top eight receivers all returning (tied with UNC for tops among preseason Top 25 teams), including All-WAC WRs Pettis and Titus Young, coaches decided Kirby was a luxury who'd be better served running with the scout team in 2010.

In fact, all but two of the team's 23 listed starters -- the one extra is accounted for by different packages -- are juniors or seniors. Boise's roster is so packed that it signed the fewest 2010 recruits (nine) of any team in the nation.

Ask players why all that depth and experience matters and many have an example ready. Pettis compares the Virginia Tech comeback in 2010 with his second game as a Bronco, a 24-10 loss at the Washington Huskies in 2007. He remembers the amplification of every sound from the 70,000 at Husky Stadium. His mind was going a million different directions, with no focus. It was like trying to concentrate while trapped inside a barrel, with someone banging from the outside. The loss was one of just four his class has experienced -- they're a remarkable 44-4 through eight games of Pettis' senior season -- and set the table for what happened inside that final huddle against the Hokies. 

Safety Winston Venable starts to talk about a Sunday team workout in the pool after a 48-0 win over San Jose State. A few words into it, he stops. "Nah, people will think it's corny," he says. "Nobody will get it unless they were there."

Encouraged to try, Venable forges forward. As it turns out, one of the linemen started a rhythmic clap-clap-splash routine that spread from him to the rest of the linemen, then to the linebackers, then to the backs, and before long 105 college football players were laughing and goofing around and slapping the water like kids following a counselor's orders at summer camp. "I was looking around thinking, Who else is having this much fun?" Venable says. "I don't think anybody is. It's the kind of chemistry you get only from being around each other for a few years and understanding the difference between having fun and being funny."

Chris Petersen might not look like a big-time college football coach -- more like a good-natured dentist -- but he's typical in one respect: He can detect the grim side of a Pacific sunset. Sitting in his decidedly coach-class office (ground floor, no view, none of the survey-my-domain aesthetic of the Mack Browns of the world), he says, "There's always an issue. If you've got young guys, you worry about what they don't know. If you've got older guys, you worry that they'll take things for granted and details will slide."

Asked if the experience of Kellen Moore, Young and Pettis gives his offense more freedom to improvise, Petersen laughs and says, "Freedom? No. They have the freedom to do it exactly as it's supposed to be done."

Eventually, Petersen relents. Yes, he says, experience helps. It helps during the week, when guys like Kirby Moore and fifth-year senior running back Jarvis Hodge (a redshirt on the sideline during the Game That Changed Everything, the 2007 Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma) have the savvy and the talent to give the Broncos the kinds of scout-team looks that few teams get. 

Says Moore: "During games I'll watch other teams run a play we ran in scout team and I'll say, 'We ran that better in practice.'" Hodge, a fourth-string running back and special-teamer who has a 54-yard touchdown on his résumé this year, says, "The Oklahoma game is where it started. From there everybody knew we could do anything. No challenge too big."

Petersen's got a third-year starting QB whose idea of a hobby is to order old college playbooks off the Internet. He's got one four-year receiver (Pettis) who he says is "light years ahead of most guys when it comes to understanding the game." He's got another four-year receiver (Young) whose speed and route-running precision have allowed Moore the leeway to throw certain routes -- comeback passes, for instance -- away from his body so he can catch the ball in his hands and be in better position to run after the catch. His defense returned 18 of its top 19 tacklers from last year's 14th-best unit, which allowed 17.1 PPG. 

"That's where the experience shows," Petersen says. "They have a great feel for it, and most years you don't have that. Most years it's like, I hope you're on the same page. These guys are at their best when the coverage is tight or we get into some gray-area situations. With their experience and knowledge, the gray area becomes a little more black and white."

Petersen might lament the roster-balancing of the next two years. But if he was going to choose a year to load up, this might be the right one. They're once again at the forefront of the BCS argument of big versus little, automatic versus nonautomatic, SEC versus WAC.

Petersen tries not to sound exasperated when he says, "You could argue either side. It's like debate class."

The permutations and computations are somebody else's business, but if the Broncos keep winning they know there's hope for one final outcome: The chance to make nothing become everything.