Air Force lost Wednesday night at TCU, a team that had found ways to lose 23 of its last 26 Mountain West games.

The Falcons lost primarily because of offensive timidity. With the game on the line, no one from the Falcons stepped forward. No one wanted to take a chance. No one wanted to get aggressive.

The Falcons’ season is slipping away.

Someone must step forward in the late minutes of games and be bold. That someone has not been Michael Lyons, who is still hobbled by an ankle injury. (He’s nowhere close to 100 percent, regardless of what Jeff Reynolds says.)

That someone might be Kamryn Williams. That someone might be Mike Fitzgerald. I might have a better candidate if Reynolds allowed us to watch complete practices. (Most coaches allow reps from the media to watch entire practices. Never been able to figure out why Reynolds wants to be so secretive.)

Air Force rallied to a respectable 6-10 record in the Mountain West last season.

This season could be a disaster – a return to the dark days of not so long ago – if the Falcons continue their timid ways on offense.

Your thoughts?

Say this about supporters of Tim Tebow:

They never give up. They never back down. Reality does not faze them.

I’ve heard from several Tebow supporters since the season ended. I look at his abysmal statistics in the Broncos final games and see Tebow is a prime reason the Broncos finished the season with four losses in their last five games.

Tebow supporters see something else entirely.

They place all  blame elsewhere. Receivers dropped his passes. Coaches doomed him with conservative game plans.

And, my favorite:

Broncos guru John Elway drained Tebow’s confidence by declining to become a cheerleader of all things Timmy.

In Tebow’s final five games, he completed 49 of 121 passes, a horrid 40 percent completion rate. He threw for 891 yards, or 178 per game. He tossed 3 touchdowns and 5 interceptions.

Receivers did not drop 72 passes. Coaches did not throw 5 interceptions. Elway did not lose four games.

Tebow has a chance – a strong chance – to become a quality NFL starter. He could lead the Broncos for the next decade. He’s a superb leader and one of NFL history’s all-time great running quarterbacks. We all saw how he delivered in the late, tense moments of games.

But he faces tremendous challenges. He must improve his delivery. You can argue with this truth. That’s fine. But arguing about the truth never alters the truth. The truth has this habit of sticking around.

He must improve his accuracy. He must make quicker decisions in the pocket. He must realize it’s his left arm, and not his legs, that will carry him to NFL success.

A reader named Ray called me this week and suggested – strongly suggested – Tebow  someday will rank as Elway’ s equal. I discouraged this idea. I strongly discouraged this idea. We enjoyed  a friendly conversation but Ray would not be moved.

Tebow, he said, someday will rank as Elway’s equal. Remember, Elway is one of the top five quarterbacks ever to play the game.

Tebow has shown great maturity when he deals with his critics. He takes a wise stance:

He ignores them.

He would be wise to take the same approach toward his supporters.

As always, I’m interested in your thoughts. Thanks for stopping by.

I’m on Twitter. Hope you’ll join me: @davidramz

Extremely sorry to see Air Force forward/guard Taylor Stewart has suffered a fractured ankle. We probably will not see Stewart again in a Falcons uniform.

And that’s too bad.

Stewart wasn’t quick enough to play guard, and he wasn’t tall enough to play forward, but, somehow, he erased those limitations. He was always hustling and often outleaping taller opponents for rebounds.  You can’t have enough Taylor Stewarts on the court. He was averaging 8.1 points, 3 assists and nearly 3 rebounds a game for the Falcons.

Stewart has suffered through extreme bad luck during his Air Force career. He suffered a fractured arm as a sophomore, an extreme stomach ailment as a junior and a fractured ankle as a senior.

I plan to interview Stewart  on Monday for a column that is scheduled to run next week in the Gazette and on Gazette.com. If you have any questions you want me to ask, let me know.

We all know about life’s great mysteries. Did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone? Why is Madonna so popular? Why did Brad Pitt dump Jennifer Aniston? (She seems nice enough.) Why does Robert DeNiro, one of the great talents of our age, star in so many ridiculously bad movies?

And, maybe the biggest of all:

Why did Wake Forest hire Jeff Bzdelik as basketball coach? Bzdelik is, of course, the former coach at Air Force.

In his final two seasons as Wake coach, Dino Gaudio led the Demon Deacons to 44 wins, including 20 in the  ultra-tough Atlantic Coast Conference. For his efforts, he was fired.

And Bzdelik was hired.

Last season, under Bzdelik’s confused direction, the Deacons finished 8-24, lost 15 of 16 ACC games and ended the campaign with 10 straight defeats, all by more than 10 points.

This season, the agony continues.

Wake Forest lost to North Carolina State, 76-40, on Saturday night. The Deacons scored 17 points in the first half against a team that had been giving up an average of 70 points per game in ACC play.

I know Bzdelik won 50 games in two seasons at Air Force. I also know he inherited a team fully prepared to win 50 games in two seasons. And I know he abandoned the Falcons the first chance he got.

The fun should continue for Bzdelik tonight. His Demon Deacons tangle with Duke.  Should be one awful night of basketball.

Will Buzzy ever find success at Wake Forest?

No.

Your thoughts? Would love to hear your predictions for Buzzy’s future at Wake.

I did not think the Broncos had any chance against the Steelers on Sunday.

We all know how that turned out.

Think the Broncos have a chance to upset the Patriots in New England on Saturday. Not a great chance, but a chance.

For one thing, Denver led the Patriots, 16-7,  early in the second quarter at Mile High last month. The Broncos were dominating the game. The Broncos looked on their way to a seventh straight win.

Then Tom Brady and his buddies awoke.

Can the Broncos deliver yet another upset?

Let me know what you think.

Yes, I know we’re all experiencing Tebow-mania, whether we want to or not.

But the true star from the one of the biggest plays in Broncos history was receiver Demaryius Thomas, who turned a nice 30-yard gain into an utterly sensational 80-yard touchdown that ended one of the most entertaining game in NFL history. (Know I’m using a lot of superlatives. Also know the game warrents superlatives.)

Thomas is big, fast, tough. His hands are improving. He seems to have a special bond with Tebow. On The Touchdown, Thomas showed everyone, and especially the Steelers, just what could be ahead for him and the Broncos.

He could – he should – be on his way to big-time stardom. If he remains healthy – always a big if in the violent world of the NFL – he could someday climb to the top, or near the top, of the list of the Broncos all-time best receivers.

Former Gazette columnist Milo Bryant recently offered an interesting – if far-fetched – idea for the future of Broncos quarterbacking. Milo, who has‘ been my friend for a couple decades, is now suffering greatly in the sun and surf of San Diego. Poor guy.

Why not, Milo asks, ship Tim Tebow to Jacksonville, where the Jaguars struggle to sell  tickets, and then bring Peyton Manning to Colorado?

” Elway would not have a difficult selling job to the fans,” Milo wrote me. “He’d have at least three good years with Manning. Ship Tebow home to Jacksonville’s new owner who wants to put butts in seats. Get several draft picks for him and fill a few holes with those picks. Instantly become better in a crappy AFC West.”

An fascinating scenario. Your thoughts?

Would like to hear your thoughts.

My recent column that stated Air Force and Colorado College are both national powers greatly offended a few dozen CC fans, who were aghast at the idea that AFA is a national power.

What is a national power? Air Force has traveled to the NCAA Tournament four out of the last five seasons. The Falcons recently traveled achingly close to the Frozen Four.

Do all these accomplishments make the Falcons a national power? Or not?

Let me know.

Thanks for stopping by.

Nene is a fine human being. He’s a good teammate. He’s kind to children.

He’s not worth $67 million over five seasons.

He’s being overpaid by, oh, $27 million or so by the Denver Nuggets. Nene barely hovers above mediocrity. For this, he will be paid more than $13 million per season.

NBA owners locked out players in the name of economic sanity. The crazy spending of yesteryear was over, the owners said.

Then, immediately after the lockout ends, the money behind the New Jersey Nets offered Nene $15 million a season, or $60 million over four years.

This served as a loud announcement.

The NBA’s economic insanity had survived the shutdown.

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