Boise St.

If anyone didn't see The Fiesta Bowl last week, it was perhaps the greatest football game I've ever seen. Boise St. defeated Oklahoma 43-42 after the craziest series of ending you could imagine. After watching the game, I've decided that even though I am a huge USC football fan, there is no doubt in my mind that Boise St. is the obvious choice as the Official College Football Team of The Awesome Helicopter Ninjas. Why? Several reasons:

Being Underdogs - Much like the Ninjas before our first championship, the Broncos were the huge underdog in the Fiesta Bowl. They come from a conference (the WAC) that is not perceived as a power conference, and they don't recruit big-name athletes. Meanwhile, Oklahoma is one of the biggest names in college football, and perennially recruits the best high school players in the country. But Boise St. showed that by playing smart and working as a team, you can overcome disadvantages of raw athletic talent.

The Blue Field - Boise St. plays on a blue field. Normally, this might be considered a downside for me, since it's commonally referred to as "Smurf Turf", and another team in our Division might want to claim that as their own. But for me, I love the concept of deciding to make your turf blue "just because" they wanted to be different than every other team with artifical turf, who always have green fields (in an attempt to make the field look more like natural grass - silly, since if you want that, just HAVE real grass...)

The Trick Plays - The No. 1 reason. Boise St. scored the game-tying touchdown on a "hook and ladder" play. It's the type of play you try to run in a sandlot football game when you're 12, and it never works. So there's certainly no reason to call it on 4th and 18 with one minute left in the biggest game of your school's history when you trail by a touchdown.

Then, in overtime and trailing by seven, they scored a touchdown again on fourth down, this time by snapping the ball to a WR (who went in the backfield as the QB went in motion), who then threw a pass to the tight end in the end zone. And if this doesn't prove that Boise St.'s coach doesn't have balls the size of the potatoes his state is so well known for, they decide to go for a two-point conversion instead of kicking an extra point and starting a new overtime session - either winning or losing the game on the next play.

And then, they run the freaking Statue of Liberty play! And it works! The best part is that they actually practice this play during the week. And they ran it with their season on the line, even though their own coach admitted that IT NEVER WORKS IN PRACTICE!

I can't think of another college football team that combines the spirit of competition, the joy for having fun and the sheer "Who Gives A Fuck" ability to pull things out of their ass like Boise St. does, which matches the Ninjas to a T. Now, if we could get Boise St. to incorporate some smoke bombs into a play...