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For Boise State, an original giant killer, winning a CFP game would be signature feat

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For Boise State, an original giant killer, winning a CFP game would be signature feat

BOISE, Idaho — Merle and Ruth Baptiste have been Boise State season-ticket holders since 1974, when the Broncos were still competing in Division II. They were there when the program won a Division I-AA national championship in 1980, when it made its first bowl game, the Humanitarian Bowl, in 1999, and when it won its first BCS bowl in 2006.

On Friday night at chilly Albertson’s Stadium, they saw a new first: Boise State qualifying for a chance to play for major college football’s national championship. The Broncos’ 21-7 win over UNLV will earn No. 10 Boise State (12-1) an automatic berth in the first 12-team College Football Playoff.

“It’s about time,” Merle said. “We should have played for a (national) championship long before this, but we were disrespected by the big schools.”

There’s no overstating the significance of this moment, not just for Boise State but for college football. It’s a sport that has forever operated as a country club, offering lifetime membership for a Notre Dame or Alabama, while handing out visitor passes to a Tulane or Western Michigan. Back in the BCS days, the powers-that-be got dragged before Congress and threatened with antitrust scrutiny for so brazenly excluding half of the sport from its party.

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Boise State, Ashton Jeanty steamroll UNLV to win MWC, close in on CFP bid

A generation later, when the commissioners created the new 12-team Playoff, they finally saved a seat for the little guy. It’s fitting that the first Group of 5 program to take advantage was one of its original giant killers.

“We would have loved if there was a Playoff — we felt like we could have played with anyone,” said Jared Zabransky, quarterback for Boise State’s undefeated 2006 Fiesta Bowl team. “That’s the way it should have been for a long time. I’m just grateful these kids now get the opportunity to do that.”

Those kids, headlined by Heisman hopeful Ashton Jeanty, earned their second straight Mountain West championship Friday, with Jeanty breaking a 75-yard touchdown and notching his sixth 200-yard game of the season (209). Afterward, seemingly all 36,663 fans at sold-out Albertson’s Stadium swarmed onto the blue turf.

“Hope is powerful,” said Boise State athletic director Jeremiah Dickey. “You’ve seen it all year in terms of college football fans — when you provide more opportunity, it really ignites a fire.”

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Boise State’s fans were so lit, they tore down the goal post and dumped it in the nearby Boise River. They’d been part of history. Never before had a Group of 5 team walked off its field knowing it was Playoff-bound. Even undefeated Cincinnati in 2021 couldn’t be certain until the committee rendered its final judgment.

“It’s such a big opportunity for all schools,” said Boise State coach Spencer Danielson. “As a competitor, all you want is a shot.”

Zabransky and Ian Johnson didn’t get their shot to play for a national championship despite finishing as the only undefeated team in the country that season. Neither did Kellen Moore and Doug Martin with their own 14-0 squad three years later. Dan Hawkins coached a Boise team in 2004 that went undefeated in the regular season and landed in the Liberty Bowl. Same thing in 2008 for an undefeated Chris Petersen team that finished up in the Poinsettia Bowl.

Danielson and Jeanty are the latest in a long line of coaches and players that drove Boise State’s decades-long evolution from junior college to lower-level NCAA school to FBS to national power. Back in the early 2010s, the Broncos were regularly beating the likes of Georgia, Oklahoma, Oregon and Virginia Tech. They reached three Fiesta Bowls, winning all three. But they never got the call to join a power conference like fellow BCS busters Utah and TCU.

Then the program plateaued for about a decade, still regularly winning 10 or 11 games a year and a few Mountain West championships, but never the kind of breakthrough season nationally like UCF had in 2017 and ’18 or Cincinnati in 2020 and ‘21. Both those, plus Houston, UCF and SMU, got their call-ups, too.

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Just 13 months ago, Boise State was 5-5, in danger of suffering its first losing season since 1997, when Dickey made the surprising decision to fire third-year coach Andy Avalos, a former Broncos linebacker whose team had won 10 games a year earlier. Dickey promoted then 35-year-old defensive coordinator Danielson, while fully intending to make an outside hire after the season.

That is, until Danielson’s team won its next three games, reached the Mountain West Championship Game and upset UNLV, earning Danielson the full-time job.

With Jeanty returning following a 1,347-yard season, Boise was picked in the preseason to win its conference, but was hardly considered a front-runner to reach the CFP.  The Broncos did not appear in the AP poll for the first time until Sept. 22, a couple of weeks after going to Eugene and taking then seventh-ranked Oregon to the wire. By then Jeanty, who ran for 267 yards and six touchdowns in his team’s opener at Georgia Southern, had begun garnering early Heisman buzz. But surely there was little chance a Group of 5 running back would actually make it to New York.

Three months later, Jeanty just finished with more rushing yards in a regular season — 2,497 — than any player in history not named Barry Sanders. The only question now is whether it was enough to eclipse Colorado two-way sensation Travis Hunter for the trophy.

“He shows week in and week out he’s the best football player in the country,” said Danielson, “and I don’t think it’s even close.”

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Jeanty is reason enough for Power 4 Playoff teams to be leery about drawing Boise State as their opponent. Barring a surprise move by the committee Sunday, the Broncos will likely earn a top-four seed and receive a bye to the quarterfinals. They would likely be placed in the Dec. 31 Fiesta Bowl for geographic reasons. Should Clemson upset SMU in the ACC championship, Boise may even move up to the No. 3 seed.

If they’re the No. 4 seed, it could create a fascinating matchup with the No. 5 seed, which will be either the loser of the Big Ten or SEC championship games, or 11-1 Notre Dame.

“Good luck to anyone who … thinks they’re going to win the game (against Boise State),” said UNLV coach Barry Odom. “I think they’re one of the best teams in college football right now, and I think they’ll do a great job representing this conference. They’re built to make a run.”

They’ve done it before. Boise was not nearly as respected a program as it is today when Zabransky handed off to Johnson on that famous Statue of Liberty play to knock off a peak-Bob Stoops Oklahoma team. The top-10 Virginia Tech team the Broncos beat in the 2010 season opener went on to win the ACC that season. The Georgia team they demolished in the 2011 season opener won 10 games and the SEC East.

But winning a College Football Playoff quarterfinal would be Boise State’s signature feat yet — the football equivalent of those early Gonzaga NCAA Tournament teams that helped build that program into a new-age blue blood.

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“This team wanted to leave a legacy, where your actions have resounding effects for years to come,” said Danielson. “Standing on that podium, seeing Bronco Nation swarm the field, those are moments that can change everything.”

For Boise State, and for college football.

(Photo of Boise State coach Spencer Danielson: Loren Orr / Getty Images)

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Ana Bărbosu, Romanian gymnast involved in Olympic bronze medal controversy, commits to Stanford

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Ana Bărbosu, Romanian gymnast involved in Olympic bronze medal controversy, commits to Stanford

Romanian gymnast Ana Bărbosu, who won a bronze on floor exercise at the 2024 Olympic Games after a controversial ruling that stripped the medal from American Jordan Chiles, will join Stanford’s gymnastics team in the fall. She announced her commitment via Instagram on Wednesday.

“Can’t wait to join this amazing family! Go Card,” she wrote.

Bărbosu, 18, was awarded the bronze medal six days after the floor exercise final after her team appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). During the Aug. 5 event, Chiles made the podium after her coach, Cecile Landi, successfully inquired to have Chiles’ score raised by 0.1, bumping her from fifth to third place. The court ruled that the judges presiding over the final should not have accepted the inquiry because Landi’s request came four seconds after the one-minute deadline to submit it. The International Olympic Committee reallocated Chiles’ bronze medal to Bărbosu, who received it at a ceremony in Bucharest, Romania’s capital.

Bărbosu’s elation and devastation was in the spotlight on the day of the floor exercise final. When Chiles, the last competitor in the event, initially scored a 13.666, Bărbosu — who scored 13.700 — began celebrating what she thought was a third-place finish. After Landi’s inquiry led to Chiles’ score change, Bărbosu’s dropped her Romanian flag out of shock and left the floor in tears.

Though Bărbosu is currently the official owner of the bronze, the medal is still tied up in appeals. Chiles’ attorneys filed a formal appeal with the Swiss Federal Tribunal, Switzerland’s Supreme Court, to overturn the CAS ruling on Sept. 16 and added a second appeal brief on Sept. 24. USA Gymnastics also filed a separate appeal in conjunction with Chiles’ application. Chiles’ attorneys are arguing that CAS did not consider video evidence that “showed her inquiry was submitted on time.”

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While Bărbosu’s participation in the Paris Games has largely been clouded by the floor final controversy, she helped Romania to a seventh-place finish in the team final and earned a spot in the individual all-around final. In the 2026 NCAA gymnastics season, she’ll join a Stanford squad that went on a Cinderella run from a No. 52 ranking in Week 1 to the 2024 NCAA championship semifinal. It’s likely Bărbosu and Chiles will face off at the collegiate level next season, as Chiles will be completing her senior season with UCLA gymnastics and Bărbosu will make her NCAA debut. Former Pac-12 foes Stanford and UCLA are in different conferences now (the ACC and Big Ten, respectively), but the schools have a dual meet slated for March 9, indicating they will likely continue scheduling meets together in the future.

Another gymnast who competed for Romania at the 2024 Olympics will also enter the NCAA ranks soon, as Lilia Cosman committed to Michigan State.

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(Photo: Lionel Bonaventure / AFP via Getty Images)

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Notre Dame football team members dealing with flu ahead of semifinal vs Penn State: report

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Notre Dame football team members dealing with flu ahead of semifinal vs Penn State: report

Some members of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish may have to do their best Michael Jordan impression on Thursday.

The flu is reportedly going around the team, just hours before their College Football Playoff semifinal against Penn State.

On3 Sports reported that “those who have it have it bad, but it sounds like that’s mostly backups and special teams players.”

A detail view of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish logo is seen at the 50-yard line on the field in action during a football game between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Ohio State Buckeyes on Sept. 23, 2023 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. (Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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Other reports since indicate that the illness has subsided in recent days, but players are not out of the woods yet.

The Fighting Irish are riding high headed into Thursday’s Orange Bowl after taking down the second-ranked Georgia Bulldogs in the quarterfinal last week.

Notre Dame earned the seventh seed in the bracket, which got them to host a home game against No. 10 Indiana. That was a rather easy victory, but Thursday may just be their toughest test yet.

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Notre Dame Fighting Irish cheerleaders run down field bearing the Notre Dame Fighting Irish logo in action during a game between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Stanford Cardinals on Oct. 12, 2024 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. (Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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Penn State held Boise State star running back Ashton Jeanty to just 104 rushing yards last week, his lowest of the season. That is not necessarily great news for the Irish, considering Riley Leonard had just 90 yards passing against the Bulldogs.

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The Nittany Lions are the sixth seed in the bracket. 

The Fighting Irish’s season seemed to be dead in the water after losing at home to Northern Illinois in the second week of the season, but they have since rattled off a dozen consecutive wins to find themselves just one victory away from their second national title game in the last 15 years.

However, if they can get by what seemed to be a program-altering loss at the time, a bug seems to be just a minor speed bump.

This is the third time the Fighting Irish are in the playoffs, having lost in the semifinals in both 2018 and 2020.

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Why the Dodgers finally traded once-coveted prospect Diego Cartaya

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Why the Dodgers finally traded once-coveted prospect Diego Cartaya

Two years ago, Diego Cartaya was the crown jewel of the Dodgers’ highly touted farm system.

On Thursday, he quietly departed the organization without ever coming close to reaching the majors.

A week after being designated for assignment by the club to clear a roster spot for the signing of South Korean infielder Hyeseong Kim, Cartaya was traded to the Minnesota Twins for minor league pitcher Jose Vazquez, the team announced.

Vasquez, a 20-year-old right-hander, has a career 8.05 ERA in two seasons in the Dominican Summer League, coming to the Dodgers as little more than a long-shot flier.

Cartaya, once considered one of the best young talents in the sport after signing with the Dodgers out of Venezuela, was supposed to be destined for so much more.

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A 6-foot-3 catcher with a powerful right-handed swing, Cartaya was ranked as the Dodgers’ best prospect by MLB Pipeline in both 2022 and 2023. At one point, he was tabbed as a consensus top-20 prospect in baseball by MLB Pipeline, Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus.

Though Cartaya was annually a subject of trade rumors, the Dodgers never involved him in a blockbuster deal, maintaining hope in his potential as a key part of their long-term future.

Alas, injuries and poor performance derailed the 23-year-old’s rise through the minors, stalling his career as other young catchers like Dalton Rushing and Hunter Feducia passed him in the Dodgers’ organizational depth chart.

Cartaya’s best seasons in the club’s system came in 2021, when he batted .298 with 10 home runs and a 1.023 OPS in 31 games in single A, and 2022, when he hit .254 with 22 home runs and a .892 OPS in single A and high A, and appeared in the MLB Futures Game at Dodger Stadium.

Entering 2023, Cartaya didn’t seem far away from making Chavez Ravine his permanent home. Though he had battled back and hamstring injuries already, his power at the plate and big arm behind the dish made him look like a rising star. He opened that season in double A, and seemed primed to quickly climb the final rungs of the minor league ladder.

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But that year, Cartaya hit only .189 while splitting time between catcher and designated hitter. He hit 19 home runs, but also struck out 117 times.

Early last year, Cartaya’s numbers rebounded slightly, earning him a promotion to triple-A Oklahoma City. Once there, however, he batted just .208 with a .643 OPS in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.

When the Dodgers needed a reserve catcher late in the season, they summoned Feducia — a lower-ranked prospect and former 12th-round pick — to their big league roster instead.

Between that and the emergence of Rushing, the club’s top draft pick in 2022 and current No. 1 rated prospect, Cartaya’s tenuous place within the organization was clear. And when the team needed to clear a roster spot last week, Cartaya became the easiest name for the team to move on from, his once tantalizing potential having never come to fruition.

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