Former Boise State coach Chris Petersen still gets asked about the Fiesta Bowl victory over Oklahoma on the first day of 2007. That game had everything. Underdog Boise State took a 28-10 lead over one of college football’s blue bloods that was followed by a 25-point Sooners run capped by what could have been a back-breaking interception return for a touchdown with 1:02 left. Then the Broncos used three trick plays that remain sensations to not only force overtime but win 43-42. And then there was the marriage proposal by Boise State running back Ian Johnson — shortly after scoring the winning two-point play — to cheerleader Chrissy Popadics that was accepted on national TV. That game put Broncos football on the national map for most fans, but looking back 18 years later, Petersen sees it differently. “Everybody wants to talk about that Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl game, which is great how it all worked out and all those things,” Petersen said. “But we go back to play TCU (three years later) again on the big stage. It’s not as flashy a game, but to me, that was an even better win.” Going back to the Fiesta Bowl and winning, Petersen reasoned, showed the Broncos weren’t a splash soon to fade away, that there was something longer lasting and more substantive happening on the famed blue turf. RELATED COVERAGE Hajj-Malik Williams throws 2 TDs passes to help No. 24 UNLV beat Cal 24-13 in the LA Bowl Mike Shula is back in the SEC at South Carolina after nearly two decades since Alabama fired him College Football Playoff picks: SMU, Clemson, Vols, Hoosiers beware as CFP opens on campus The winning has continued with few interruptions. No. 8 and third-seeded Boise State is preparing for another trip to the Fiesta Bowl, this time in a playoff quarterfinal against No. 5 and sixth-seeded Penn State on New Year’s Eve. That success has continued through a series of coaches, though with a lot more of a common thread than readily apparent. Dirk Koetter was hired from Oregon, where Petersen was the wide receivers coach. Not only did Koetter bring Petersen with him to Oregon, Petersen introduced him to Dan Hawkins, who also was hired for the staff. So the transition from Koetter to Hawkins to Petersen ensured at least some level of consistency. Koetter and Hawkins engineered double-digit victory seasons five times over a six-year span that led to power-conference jobs. Koetter went to Arizona State after three seasons and Hawkins to Colorado after five. Then when Petersen became the coach after the 2005 season, he led Boise State to double-digit wins his first seven seasons and made bowls all eight years. He resisted the temptation to leave for a power-conference program until Washington lured him away toward the end of the 2013 season. Then former Boise State quarterback and offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin took over and posted five double-digit victory seasons over his first six years. After going 5-2 during the COVID-shortened 2020 season, he left for Auburn. “They just needed consistency of leadership,” said Koetter, who is back as Boise State’s offensive coordinator. “This program had always won at the junior-college level, the Division II level, the I-AA (now FCS) level.” But Koetter referred to “an unfortunate chain of events” that made Boise State a reclamation project when he took over in 1998. Coach Pokey Allen led Boise State to the Division I-AA national championship game in 1994, but was diagnosed with cancer two days later. He died on Dec. 30, 1996, at 53. Allen coached the final two games that season, Boise State’s first in Division I-A (now FBS). Houston Nutt became the coach in 1997, went 4-7 and headed to Arkansas. Then Koetter took over. “One coach dies and the other wasn’t the right fit for this program,” Koetter said. “Was a really good coach, did a lot of good things, but just wasn’t a good fit for here.” But because of Boise State’s success at the lower levels, Koetter said the program was set up for success. “As Boise State has risen up the conference food chain, they’ve pretty much always been at the top from a player talent standpoint,” Koetter said. “So it was fairly clear if we got things headed in the right direction and did a good job recruiting, we would be able to win within our conference for sure.” Success didn’t take long. He went 6-5 in 1998 and then won 10 games each of the following two seasons. Hawkins built on that winning and Petersen took it to another level. But there is one season, really one game, no really one half that still bugs Petersen. He thought his best team was in 2010, one that entered that late-November game at Nevada ranked No. 3 and had a legitimate chance to play for the national championship. The Colin Kaepernick-led Wolf Pack won 34-31. “I think the best team that I might’ve been a part of as the head coach was the team that lost one game to Nevada,” Petersen said. “That team, to me, played one poor half of football on offense the entire season. We were winning by a bunch at half (24-7) and we came out and did nothing on offense in the second half and still had a chance to win. “That team would’ve done some damage.” There aren’t any what-ifs with this season’s Boise State team. The Broncos are in the field of the first 12-team playoff, representing the Group of Five as its highest-ranked conference champion. That got Boise State a bye into the quarterfinals. Spencer Danielson has restored the championship-level play after taking over as the interim coach late last season during a rare downturn that led to Andy Avalos’ dismissal . Danielson received the job full time after leading Boise State to the Mountain West championship . Now the Broncos are 12-1 with their only defeat to top-ranked and No. 1 seed Oregon on a last-second field goal . Running back Ashton Jeanty also was the runner-up to the Heisman Trophy . “Boise State has been built on the backs of years and years of success way before I got here,” Danielson said. “So even this season is not because of me. It’s because the group of young men wanted to leave a legacy, be different. We haven’t been to the Fiesta Bowl in a decade. They said in January, ‘We’re going to get that done.’ They went to work.” As was the case with Danielson, Petersen and Koetter said attracting top talent is the primary reason Boise State has succeeded all these years. Winning, obviously, is the driving force, and with more entry points to the playoffs, the Broncos could make opportunities to keep returning to the postseason a selling point. But there’s also something about the blue carpet. Petersen said he didn’t get what it was about when he arrived as an assistant coach, and there was some talk about replacing it with more conventional green grass. A poll in the Idaho Statesman was completely against that idea, and Petersen has come to appreciate what that field means to the program. “It’s a cumulative period of time where young kids see big-time games when they’re in seventh and eighth and ninth and 10th grade and go, ‘Oh, I know that blue turf. I want to go there,’” Petersen said. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-footballLAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Andrej Jakimovski converted an off-balance layup with 8 seconds left, and Colorado handed No. 2 UConn its second loss in two days at the Maui Invitational, beating the two-time defending national champion 73-72 on Tuesday. A day after to Memphis that left about the officiating, UConn (4-2) couldn't shake the unranked Buffaloes (5-1), who shot 62.5% in the second half. With Colorado trailing 72-71 in the closing seconds, Jakimovski drove to his right and absorbed contact from UConn’s Liam McNeeley. He tossed the ball toward the glass and the shot was good as he fell to the floor. Hassan Diarra missed a 3-pointer just ahead of the buzzer for UConn. Elijah Malone and Julian Hammond III scored 16 points each for Colorado, and Jakimovski had 12 points and 10 rebounds. The Huskies led 40-32 at halftime and by nine points early in the second half, but Colorado quickly closed that gap. McNeeley led UConn with 20 points. UConn: Hurley's squad is facing its first adversity in quite a while. The Huskies arrived on Maui with a 17-game winning streak that dated to February. Colorado: The Buffaloes were held to season lows in points (56) and field goal percentage (37%) in a 16-point loss to Michigan State on Monday but shot 51.1% overall and 56.3% (9 of 16) from 3-point range against the Huskies. Hurley called timeout to set up the Huskies' final possession, but the Buffs forced them to take a contested 3. Colorado had a 28-26 rebounding advantage after being out-rebounded 42-29 by Michigan State. Colorado will play the Iowa-Dayton winner in the fifth-place game on Wednesday. UConn will play the loser of that matchup in the seventh-place game. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up . AP college basketball: and .
A judge on Monday granted a request by prosecutors to dismiss the election subversion case against Donald Trump because of a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president. Judge Tanya Chutkan agreed to the request by Special Counsel Jack Smith to dismiss the case against the president-elect "without prejudice," meaning it could potentially be revived after Trump leaves the White House four years from now. "Dismissal without prejudice is appropriate here," Chutkan said, adding in the ruling that "the immunity afforded to a sitting President is temporary, expiring when they leave office." Trump, 78, was accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden and removing large quantities of top secret documents after leaving the White House, but the cases never came to trial. Smith also moved on Monday to drop his appeal of the dismissal of the documents case filed against the former president in Florida. That case was tossed out earlier this year by a Trump-appointed judge on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed. The special counsel paused the election interference case and the documents case this month after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 presidential election. Smith cited the long-standing Justice Department policy of not indicting or prosecuting a sitting president in his motions to have the cases dismissed. "The Government's position on the merits of the defendant's prosecution has not changed," Smith said in the filing with Chutkan. "But the circumstances have." "It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President," Smith said. "As a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated." In a separate filing, Smith said he was withdrawing his appeal of the dismissal of the classified documents case against Trump but pursuing the case against his two co-defendants, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the cases were "empty and lawless, and should never have been brought." "Over $100 Million Dollars of Taxpayer Dollars has been wasted in the Democrat Party's fight against their Political Opponent, ME," he said. "Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before." Trump was accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding -- the session of Congress called to certify Biden's win, which was violently attacked on January 6, 2021 by a mob of the then-president's supporters. Trump was also accused of seeking to disenfranchise US voters with his false claims that he won the 2020 election. The former and incoming president also faces two state cases -- in New York and Georgia. He was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter. However, Judge Juan Merchan has postponed sentencing while he considers a request from Trump's lawyers that the conviction be thrown out in light of the Supreme Court ruling in July that an ex-president has broad immunity from prosecution. In Georgia, Trump faces racketeering charges over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in the southern state, but that case will likely be frozen while he is in office. cl/sms
Partsol Secures Technology-Enabled Service Subscription with the US ArmyNew Delhi, Dec 26 (IANS): Former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, who died at the age of 92 here on Thursday, was a visionary leader who is credited with bringing transformations to the country's economy when it was passing through a rough phase. Born on September 26, 1932, in Gah, West Punjab (now in Pakistan), Dr. Manmohan Singh was a celebrated economist and politician who left an indelible mark as the Prime Minister. He headed the Congress-led government at the Centre from 2004 to 2014. As the first Sikh to hold the office of PM, Dr. Singh’s leadership was often credited for steering India through a period of significant economic transformation. He remained instrumental in elevating the country to the ranks of major global economic powers. His academic journey was also remarkable. It began at Panjab University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degree in Economics in the early 1950s. He continued his studies at the University of Cambridge, securing a ‘First Class Honours’ degree in Economics in 1957. He later completed his D.Phil. at Nuffield College, Oxford in 1962. Dr. Singh's early professional career was shaped by his role as an educator at Punjab University, the Delhi School of Economics, and at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The political journey of Dr Singh began in 1971 when he was appointed as an Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Commerce. He later acquired pivotal roles like Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) and Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. It was his tenure as Finance Minister from 1991 to 1996 that marked a crucial turning point for India's economy. During this period, India faced an economic crisis, and Singh's bold reforms helped transform the country's economic path. He implemented crucial liberalisation measures, devalued the rupee, reduced tax burdens, and attracted foreign investment, stabilising India’s economy and setting the stage for future growth. After Congress' victory in the Lok Sabha elections in 2004, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi appointed Singh as the Prime Minister. India experienced significant economic growth under Singh’s leadership thereafter. His regime was focused on inclusive growth, poverty alleviation, and development in various sectors such as education, food security, and employment. His policies paved the way for economic expansion, lifting millions out of poverty. Dr. Singh was elected again in 2009. However, his second term was full of turmoil, as it was marred by challenges such as inflation, corruption scandals, and criticisms surrounding administrative inefficiencies. Despite these controversies, his government continued to make significant strides in economic and social policy, say observers. Dr. Singh's tenure as Prime Minister was marked by several landmark reforms and initiatives. His government passed legislation guaranteeing food, education, employment, and information rights for citizens. His leadership also solidified India's role as a prominent player in the global economy, with reforms that helped the country navigate a rapid phase of growth. Singh was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, in 1987, recognising his contributions to economic policymaking. According to some political commentators, despite facing flak over corruption scandals like the 2G spectrum allocation scam and the Commonwealth Games controversy, Dr. Singh's tenure remained a defining period in Indian political history.
NoneMumbai: The Guhagar police, in Ratnagiri district, arrested two men – Suraj Deokar and Rohan Bhosale – on Tuesday in connection with the assault on four professors of the Khare-Dhere-Bhosale College on December 18. The professors were allegedly attacked by the president and secretary of the Guhagar Education Society, along with seven hired goons. The attack was purportedly planned when the professors opposed administrative mismanagement in the institution. This was the second round of arrests in the case. The first arrests were made on December 21, after the police registered an FIR against the education society’s secretary, Sandeep Bhosale, along with his accomplices, Ajit Surve and Rakesh Sakharkar. The victims, professors Govind Sanap, Anil Hirgond, Santosh Jadhav and Neelkanth Bhalerao, were left severely injured after they were allegedly assaulted with iron rods and wooden sticks by the accused on campus on December 18. Although an FIR was registered against Mahesh Bhosale, president of the education society, he has not been arrested. The sub-divisional police officer Rajmane and inspector Sachin Sawant are leading the investigation, with mounting pressure from the public and academic institutions to ensure justice for the professors. Dhananjay Kulkarni, superintendent of police, Ratnagiri district, said: “A case has been registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the Guhagar PS. Following the first arrests, after further investigation, two more accused were arrested on Tuesday.” The five accused were presented in court on Tuesday for a remand hearing, said police, and the court granted judicial custody for Bhosale and Surve, while the other three accused were sent to police custody until December 26. Condemning the attack, the Bombay University and College Teachers Union (BUCTU) had organised a protest march on Saturday, which began at the site of the attack and ended at the Guhagar tehsildar’s office. Many citizens, including teachers, students, parents and social activists, also joined the march. Led by BUCTU President Dr G B Raje and general secretary professor Chandrashekhar Kulkarni, the protestors called for justice for the victims, punishment for the perpetrators, and an investigation into the alleged corruption within the college management. They carried placards with messages such as ‘Our fathers must get justice; the goons must be punished’. Additionally, a delegation comprising BUCTU leaders and representatives of the victims’ families submitted a memorandum of demands to the Guhagar tehsildar, which included an investigation into the college’s management, and the appointment of an administrator to oversee operations. Meanwhile, distancing himself from the incident, the college’s principal, Mahendra Gaikwad, claimed he was “unaware of the events as they occurred outside the premises”.
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