WAC rivals name athletic directors

Louisiana Tech and Utah State have named new athletic directors, and each has his sights set on the schools' football programs.

The LaTech Bulldogs hired head football coach Derek Dooley (pictured) to take over the athletic director duties, despite Dooley not having any experience in the position. Did Buddy Garrity have a hand in this?

Utah State showed more sense in its hiring of Scott Barnes, most recently an assistant AD at the University of Washington. Barnes is committed to building the football program, which is a good sign for the WAC and a bad sign for unathletic high school football players from the state of Utah who were hoping for a scholarship.

Dooley introduced as Tech AD [Shreveport Times]
Barnes named AD [Herald Journal]

Bob Stoops hates underdogs

Boise State's Statue of Liberty play made it to the finals of ESPN's recent Greatest Highlight competition, much to the dismay of Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops.

Stoops thought that ESPN.com voters might have overvalued the wild ending of the Oklahoma-Boise State 2007 Fiesta Bowl as the second-greatest television highlight of all time. While Stoops termed the Broncos' Statue of Liberty surprise as "a heck of a highlight," he had a couple of other personal favorites.

What exactly were his personal favorites? We assume they were Oklahoma's 79-10 win over North Texas, the U.S. Army's victory over Native Americans, and Goliath beating David.

Big 12 Roundup [ESPN.com]

Boise State spring football kicks off today

Boise State returns to the field today for the first time in 2008 as spring practice gets underway. The Broncos will have 15 practices over the next month (taking a week off for spring break), and there will be three scrimmages planned that are open to the public. Here are the scrimmage dates:

1. March 21 (3:30 Bronco Stadium)
2. April 4 (3:30 TBA)
3. April 11 (6:00 Bronco Stadium)

Last week, we listed several questions we thought would need answering over the course of spring practice, so we hope that the Broncos have some productive sessions. Chadd Cripe will be covering the practices on his Boise Beat blog, while OBNUG will be trying to figure out a way to sneak in.

The Statesman ran a good spring ball primer on Sunday, but no Boise State news would be complete without OBNUG's opinion. Thusly, our highlights of the feature:

• "Practicing the no-huddle." Can we hope to see this during the regular season?
• "Great teams are built in practice." This just in: Utah State cancels spring practice.
• "Veterans Austin Pettis and Titus Young." Are we sure "veterans" is the right word?
• "A physical defense." We will gladly accept that.
• "Garcia Day to cornerback." Inevitable.
• "Thomas Byrd as starting center." Fine by us.

BSU football filling in the blanks [Idaho Statesman]

Bold predictions for the week ahead

Spring is here! And with it, football! We couldn't be more excited about the football. And unless it rains on our truck that we just washed, we couldn't be more excited about the spring.

Without further ado, here is what we see happening in the next few days.

• After the success of Ryan Clady's mall autograph session on Saturday, the Ann Taylor store will try to capitalize with its own Boise State football celebrity appearance. Sadly, punter Brad Elkin proves to be much less of a draw.
  
• On the first day of spring football, the Boise State coaches name their starting quarterback: Ryan Dinwiddie, who was just granted college eligibility for eternity!
  
• OBNUG will try to sneak in to watch spring practice only to be kicked out when it is decided that press passes made in Publisher and printed out on a home computer do not actually make one a member of the press. OBNUG will retaliate with a childish post about campus security.