Knudson: More More Moore

By Mark Knudson, The Mtn. Insider
October 17, 2011
 
After Saturday’s mauling of Colorado State in their first ever Mountain West game, neither Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore nor his head coach, Chris Petersen, wanted to engage in any talk about the Heisman Trophy.
 
“I wouldn’t tell them anything,” Petersen said when asked what he would say to Heisman voters. “Just tell them to watch him play.”
 
Moore was even less vociferous. “I don’t think about that,” the senior lefty shrugged. “I just go out and play.”
 
Some schools, like Baylor for instance, get out in front in the Heisman campaign. Before the season started, I got a few little pieces of Robert Griffin III for Heisman material in the mail from Baylor seeking my Heisman vote for their star quarterback.
 
Nothing came from Boise State and I doubt it ever will. That’s not their style.
 
What is their style is to go out and administer beat downs to overmatched opponents like they did to CSU. And Petersen is right: If every single Heisman voter got to witness in person what I saw on Saturday, it’s hard to imagine how Moore could be left off of any voter’s ballot. Moore was nothing short of incredible against the Rams, carving up the CSU defense like a surgeon. It would be easy to question the quality of the opposition, but keep in mind he’s done the same thing to the likes of Virginia Tech and Georgia. It doesn’t matter if it’s an SEC team, a WAC team or any of the members of his new conference. It doesn’t matter if it’s at home or on the road. Moore and his teammates just keep on doing what they do best week in and week out.
 
The Broncos want their play to do the talking when it comes to any and all polls and awards. That’s admirable, but at this point, it’s hard to tell if that tactic will work in either case. Despite drubbing every single team they’ve played thus far, good and not so good, the Broncos are getting very little love from the pollsters. When the first BCS poll came out this weekend, the Broncos sat in fifth place.

Unless things change dramatically and several teams which currently look unbeatable end up getting beat, and in some cases more than once, the Broncos will be right there with the rest of us watching the BCS title game from their living rooms in January. The difference, of course, is that they’ll likely have already completed another unbeaten season with another BCS bowl win by that point.
 
You can argue about the merits of the conference they play in and speculate about what would happen if they were to make the ill-advised move to the Big East, but the truth is nothing would be any different. As long as at least two teams from the SEC, Big 12, Pac 12 and Big Ten remain unbeaten, Boise State isn’t going to get the title shot they deserve; not under the current system. They could easily win out and still get jumped in the BCS polls before it’s over. That’s happened before.
 
That same bias will hurt Moore in his second bid for the Heisman. He finished fourth in the voting a year ago after a stellar junior campaign. He’ll probably finish somewhere in that same neighborhood this season even though he’s playing as close to perfect football as any QB can play.
 
By the time this season is over, Moore will have set a new NCAA record for career wins by a starting quarterback and is on track to set new standards for passing efficiency as well. Keep in mind that his 26-for-30, 338 yards, 4 TDs and no interceptions afternoon at Hughes Stadium, which would’ve been a career day for 99% of college quarterbacks, was just another day at the office for Moore. He’s now 14 TD passes shy of the all-time NCAA career touchdown passes record and has seven games left to play.
 
The Heisman is not a career achievement award. It’s very clear on the ballot that we are to vote for “The Most Outstanding Player in College Football for 2011.” And while Griffin, Stanford’s Andrew Luck, Wisconsin’s Russell Wilson and others are having spectacular seasons as well, it’s almost impossible to imagine that anyone is proving themselves to be more outstanding this season than Kellen Moore.  
See all of Mark Knudson's blog entries HERE.