Boise State football recruiting not keeping pace with last year or with WAC rivals

Do you remember where you were last year at this time? If you were Nick Lomax, you were probably excited about the chance to start for the Boise State Broncos. If you were Robb Akey, you were probably getting ready to not recruit Idaho high school players. And if you were a member of Bronco Nation, you were probably counting your lucky stars that the Broncos had already lay claim to six new recruits. 

This year's haul? A high school quarterback and a junior college defensive end by way of Canada.

In case you were in the mood for panicking, don't. Here's Tom Scott to tell you everything's alright:

(QB Grant) Hedrick's commitment gives the Broncos two players in the 2010 recruiting class. That's a long way behind the pace of a year ago, but then BSU has only five seniors on the roster this year and will have only a handful of scholarships to dole out. The Broncos are on schedule.

There. Isn't that better?

And to keep you adequately calm and rational, look at the WAC football recruiting table below and tell me all those zeroes don't warm your heart. (Recruiting info via Scout.com earlier this week.)

The above rationalities are the stuff of optimists and BroncoSports.com employees, of which, when it comes to BSU football, I am neither. I see two recruits in late June, and I start thinking, "What's wrong? And will this be the year that fate asks me to use up my college eligibility in a made-for-TV scenario along the lines of Rudy and Mark Wahlberg's Invincible?"

I know the answers to both.

But that doesn't stop me from wondering (and eating six small meals a day).

To be sure, the Broncos are not keeping the same torrid pace as last year. But what's even more odd is how few offers they have given out. It's as if they're guarding them with the reverence of a Stueckle Sky Club pass (I should know, apparently).

Some other WAC schools have done just the opposite, similar to what I would do for guy-ask-girl school banquets: throw a bunch of feelers out there and hope one sticks. (This is why Idaho prints its recruiting letters on the backs of Arby's to-go menus.) Check it: Nevada with 27, Hawaii with 26, three others with 20. Chances are some of these kids will take them up on those offers, especially the ones with the last name "Enderle" and with directional schools as their only other offers.

And then there's BSU with eight on the table - ahead of only San Jose State (someone should probably wake Dick Tomey up from his nap).

I don't want BSU to lose ... ever ... even in competiitons involving meaningless verbal commitments on kids who have another full season of high school football to play. I figured there would be high school kids beating down the Broncos' door for offers, so maybe the BSU coaches' being picky is a product of upward mobility. Boise State can afford to take its time in recruiting. They have gone from the dorky kid who asks a bunch of girls to the private-non-denominational-school-don't-call-it-a-dance banquet (not that there's aything wrong with that kid) to the kid who can sit back comfortably knowing a pretty good girl will still be around for him.

I worry that Boise State's lack of verbal commits is a sign that all's not well in paradise.

I forget that paradise has never had 17-year-old kids making non-binding decisions as a prerequisite.