Injury Reports, BOISE!!!

Stephen Tsai writes that Colt Brennan is good to go for the Boise game, has a few, but not nearly enough details of Dan Kelly's dad's "Fat Man Dance," and has injury updates on Fale Laeli and Kealoha Pilares.

Running back Kealoha Pilares has been cleared to play. He missed the past two games because of a sprained medial collateral ligament in his right knee.

"I'm trying to get my leg stronger," Pilares said. "I want to play without a brace."

Defensive tackle Fale Laeli said he will play despite a fractured rib. He suffered the injury in the second quarter against Nevada. "I thought it was a spasm, but a spasm usually goes away," Laeli said. "The thing kept on when I talked and breathed."

Brian McInnis has injury updates on Fale Laeli (who is good to go), Michael Lafaele (ditto) and Kealoha Pilares. Also on that page, Boise coach Chris Petersen has a few things to say about the matchup.

"If you're gonna be a good team it's not about one guy," Petersen said of both of the WAC's poster boys -- Johnson and Brennan -- missing time for their teams. "Certain positions get a lot of attention, but if you're gonna have a really good team, you're gonna have a lot of good players. At certain times, guys get banged up, and other guys gotta step up and carry the flag, and I think both teams have had that happen."

Here's a quote from Ian Johnson, from an AP article by Todd Dvorak.

"This game is really huge," Broncos running back Ian Johnson said. "We've done everything to get to this point. This is the pinnacle of our season right now ... the little turning point of whether we finish it off strongly or not. This is the biggest thing for us right now."

Chadd Cripe of the Idaho Statesman talks to Colt Brennan (lot of the same quotes from his blog) and writes about how Boise is preparing for the game.

"We're going over there not for a vacation," Petersen said. "We're going over there to play a game. That's one of the traps teams can fall into. Hawaii is a beautiful place. You think it's time to relax and enjoy the people around you. That's playing right into their hands."

Boise State lost one day of preparation for the Hawaii game, the day the team usually uses to review the previous game. The players took Sunday off while the coaches developed the game plan - they did not do any work in advance, Petersen said - and practice began Monday. The Broncos will practice Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning and leave campus at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Stephen Tsai has some great quotes from UH coaches and players about the upcoming game.

"Just to think about where we were our first year, what we've come to now, to be sitting here at 10-0, I mean, it's been a journey," Brennan said. "Now it's time to have fun and play this football game, which is probably the most anticipated football game for us all season. I mean, you can't even sleep. You can't even get through the day right now. It's that exciting."

"You have to give respect where respect is due," Elimimian said. "They're the champs, and we want the title. They're a great team. We're going to have to battle them. May the best team win on Friday."

And Ferd Lewis writes about the friendly rivalry between June Jones and Chris Petersen and some of the controversy in Idaho over last year's WAC Coach of the Year award.

The voting was blasted in Boise, where outraged fans apparently continue to nurse a hefty grudge. "Jones isn't popular because he won last year's WAC Coach of the Year Award," the Idaho Statesman noted just last month.

Whether Jones got wind of what supposedly went down, to his credit, he packed up the plaque and shipped it off to Petersen. Whereupon, Boise officials say, Petersen re-bundled it up and sent it right back. The official explanation from Boise: Jones was voted the honor and should keep it.

Reading between the lines you can see a lot of pique and pride all around: Jones unwilling to accept an award with a cloud over it and Petersen not about to take it from a coach he had beaten and what his peers had denied him.

Jones could try to pass it back again when they meet at midfield Friday. But you know what they are possibly thinking: Double or nothing?