Barry Tompkins: Watching the overdogs and cheering for the underdogs

I am back and trying to assimilate with society after three weeks of seeing Benfica of Lisbon play more football than the San Francisco 49ers.

I did however, as the coaches like to say, look at the video and decided that Benfica is in a more solid position to win the Portuguese Cup than the 49ers are to win the national championship of the American version of football.

That said, the Portuguese football league has had the same two teams contending for the title since the country was taken over by the Moors – somewhere early in the 8th century. The 49ers have had a tad more to contend with in recent years. Unless you consider an invasion by the Visigoths disrupting a perfect season for Benfica.

Speaking of the country being taken over, I heard while we were gone there was an election here.

And imagine my surprise when I learned that a military veteran and TV commentator for Fox was named Secretary of Defense. Now wait a minute! I, too, am a military veteran and was a commentator for Fox for a couple of decades. I should have at least been considered for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, don’t you think?

OK, so I did sports commentary, my military record was consistent with my high school GPA (2.0), my parents voted Democratic for so many years FDR sent them a personal thank you note, and I burned a draft card in protest of the Vietnam War even though it belonged to someone else.

All right, all right, never mind Donald.

One of the things I did commentate on was college sports. And I look back on all those games I called in all those conferences, in all those sports and, frankly, it saddens me.

I’ve mentioned this in this weekly yarn many times, but when I look at the college football playoff rankings it just makes me want to scream. It’s somehow fitting with new management about to take over the White House (and also our lives), but like the real world, the rich are simply getting richer.

The teams that would be in the college football playoffs were they to start this week, are almost to the number the teams who have the biggest pile of NIL money available to buy the best young football talent in the land.

Happily, at least for another week, I can tell you that there’s one outlier amongst them who I am rooting for as much as my “no cheering in the press box” peanut mind can. Boise State.

Now I’m not naive enough to tell you that Broncos players are student-athletes who went to Boise with the express purpose of getting their degree in Raptor Biology because it’s the only school in America that offers it.

Their football players may not be driving an Aston Martin or wearing custom made suits like players on the other 11 teams who are currently “in,” but they could be driving a pretty neat Ford F-150 truck and sporting snakeskin boots.

I would also venture to say that almost none of the Boise State players had an agent negotiate his NIL deal. I’ll even go as far as to say that most at least have a working knowledge of the location of the classrooms on campus.

They also play on a blue field – an offense bordering on heresy in places like Columbus, Ohio, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Rumor even has it that when the blue turf was first put in, several ducks met a horrible fate thinking they were going to just take a little dip in that lake on their way to Oregon.

Clean up crews in Boise had much more to think about than a bunch of hot dog wrappers and popcorn boxes.

And, by the way, the Broncos are good. In fact what got them to where they are now is not the eight wins they’ve recorded, but a three-point loss in Eugene to No. 1 Oregon on a last-second field goal.

And just to let you know, before you start thinking, “Yeah, wait’ll they get in there against the other big dogs,” they also have a guy toting the football who could possibly walk off with the most coveted statuette in football – the Heisman Trophy.

If you haven’t heard the name Ashton Jeanty, you might want to tuck it away in the back of your mind right there with the name Kamala Harris. The difference is, Jeanty has bigger numbers.

Jeanty’s story is documentary worthy. He began playing football at Naples High School – the one in Italy!

His dad was a Naval officer stationed there before moving his family to Texas, where Ashton had some success as a high school running back, but just enough that only three teams offered him a scholarship: Tulane, Cal, and Boise State. He opted to play in Idaho.

He was quietly the Mountain West player of the year last season as a sophomore and got nationally noticed for the first time in the game in Eugene. Despite the last-play loss, Jeanty had 192 rushing yards and three touchdowns — the most by anyone against the Ducks in eight years.

Right now – this week – the Broncos are on the big stage. They’re in the playoffs. Jeanty might soon be on another stage – the one at the New York Athletic Club where they hand out the Heisman Trophy.

There he’ll be sittin’ with the big kids from those big money schools. First he’ll be playing against them. And then … he’ll be shaking the commissioner’s hand as the first running back picked in the NFL draft this year.

I don’t think the Broncos can win the whole thing, but they sure are a throwback, and I like that. And if you need me when the playoffs start, I’ll be the one on my couch shaking an orange and blue Boise State pom-pom and wondering how Benfica did in the big match against FC Porto.

And then I’m going to get a life.

Barry Tompkins is a 40-year network television sportscaster and a San Francisco native.  Email him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.