Last night the Boise State Broncos delivered by far the best bowl game of the season, defeating the Oklahoma Sooners 43-42 in overtime. If you just read the headlines summarizing the game, they really didn’t do it justice. Boise State clearly outplayed Oklahoma and led almost the entire game.
Jeremy Stone on Yahoo! Sports has a good column summarizing the game:
A 43-42 overtime win over Big 12 champion Oklahoma would have been enough to satisfy even the pickiest Bronco fan. But 43-42 doesn’t begin to tell the story of this four-hour journey, from impressive domination to sheer despair to unbelievable excitement to one last dig into a depleted bag of tricks, that made everyone a Boise State fan.
How do you top a 50-yard, game-tying hook-and-lateral with seven seconds left and a fourth-down, game-saving touchdown pass by a running back? How about a Statue of Liberty play for the game-winning conversion in overtime to cap an unbeaten season, with the scorer (Ian Johnson) proposing to his girlfriend right afterward?
WAC champion Boise State 43, big bad Oklahoma 42. One for the little guy. One for the ages.
Over on ESPN, you can vote whether this was the best bowl game ever or check out Pat Forde’s great column today:
Check the plaque at the lady’s feet on Liberty Island this morning and see if the familiar sonnet has been changed. See if it now reads, “Give me your non-BCS teams tired of being disrespected, your poor of football budget, your huddled masses of mid-major strivers yearning to play in the grandest bowl games.” And see if Lady Liberty is wearing a Boise State jersey today.