Before Boise State’s 34-31 loss to Nevada, place kicker Kyle Brotzman was never called upon to win a game for the Broncos this season. Aside from the week one victory over Virginia Tech, Boise never won by any less than 13 points. Of course, all of that changed last Friday and Brotzman missed not one, but two makeable field goal attempts that allowed Nevada to squeak out with a victory.
It’s easy to be critical of kickers when they make a mistake, but no one, I’m sure, feels worse about the loss than Brotzman.
Still, just hours after the the game, a person thought to be a member of Brotzman’s family began receiving threatening phone messages from angry fans and Brotzman himself became the subject of several angry Facebook pages filled with name-calling.
“I know you got plenty of these messages, but I hope you know that you lost it for everyone. Just ruined. You’re a piece of **** man... [inaudible] It’s messed up man,” said one voicemail left for a woman unrelated to Brotzman, but whose last name was similar.
Facebook pages include “Kyle Brotzman sucks” -- “liked” by over 1,000 people -- and “F*** Kyle Brotzman”.
In fairness, there were also messages and pages supporting Brotzman.
But the negative comments are a sad reminder that many fans take the game way too seriously because college football is just that -- a game.
“That’s the beauty of this game there’s just so much passion and emotion that comes out,” said Chris Petersen. “Some people can harness it and control it better than others.”
Petersen said the politically correct thing and distributed blame for the loss to everyone on the team, including himself. However, that doesn’t excuse the actions of the aforementioned “fans”, so allow me to be a little more blunt:
Get a life.
