When Boise State true freshman wide receiver Shane Williams-Rhodes dropped a lateral and didn’t jump on the loose football in the season opener, coach Chris Petersen was ticked.

At Williams-Rhodes, of course, for freezing momentarily while Michigan State recovered the fumble.

And at himself, for not finding a more effective way to teach the youngster how to respond in that situation.

“We had that exact conversation earlier in the week about very commonly dropped balls,” said Petersen, whose 0-1 team faces Miami (Ohio) on Saturday at Bronco Stadium (2 p.m., NBC Sports Network). “That was one of them. I was frustrated with myself that I didn’t get the point across like I thought I did. … That comes with — it doesn’t necessarily need to be a freshman — but a guy who’s kind of a first-time player.”

That was just one example of the problems that can arise in season openers, particularly with an inexperienced team like Boise State’s. Others included quarterback Joe Southwick’s decisions to protect his body rather than try for a couple of first downs while scrambling and first-year offensive coordinator Robert Prince admittedly moving too slowly with his play calling.

“There’s not many things we don’t really work on,” Petersen said. “… Some things are really hard to re-create.”

None more difficult than the quarterback slide. Defenders aren’t allowed to hit the quarterbacks in practice, so there’s never a threat of bodily harm.

Coaches talked to Southwick about when to slide and when to dive — but the emphasis was on self-preservation.

“We’ve really been on him about sliding and not taking hits,” Prince said. “That’s what I coached, and that’s what he did. That’s on me.”

Said Petersen: “You’ve got to know down and distance, some field-position-type things. We never want our quarterback, regardless of situation — unless it’s the last play of the game and you’ve got to score — running into defenders full speed. There’s those third-down, fourth-down and goal-line situations where he’s going to have to be a little more aggressive.”

At Michigan State, Southwick ran out of bounds a yard short of the first-down marker on a third-and-6 in the first quarter. On the Broncos’ final drive of the game, he slid 2 yards short of a first down on third-and-10.

“Those guys are coming fast and he’s going to take a hit,” Petersen said. “… There’s a certain way that you can split defenders whether you’re diving or sliding and still be smart about it and be safe about it.”

The Broncos reviewed lessons like those during last week’s bye — one of the benefits of an off-week nobody on the team seemed to want.

Petersen talked about four laws of learning — explanation, demonstration, imitation and repetition.

“You’ve got to keep coming back to that,” he said. “A lot of times what we do is we get them in the film room and we put a play on and we tell them the mistake and then we don’t re-create it in practice.

“… We can’t just tell them this is what you have to do. You have to show them.”

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Boise State debuts the expanded Bronco Stadium on Saturday — and it also will be first-year Athletic Director Mark Coyle’s first chance to attend a Broncos home football game.

Former Athletic Director Gene Bleymaier once touted a long-term vision for the stadium, but that’s not necessarily the current vision.

“I can’t tell you how many plans I’ve heard of,” Coyle said. “I’m trying to get my arms around what has actually been looked at. We’re constantly evaluating our stadium. … I’d like to see a home game first and get some of my impressions. The new AD needs to sit down and make a priority for (what’s next).”

Boise State has about 3,000 single-game tickets in all price levels, 500 season tickets and 250 student tickets available for the Miami game.

The capacity has increased from 33,500 to 37,000. The attendance record is 34,196 for the Air Force game last year.

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Offensive line coach Chris Strausser doesn’t plan to change the starting lineup after the Broncos rushed for 37 yards in the opener. Backup Brenel Myers played some right guard in that game and likely will play this week, too.

“I don’t think it’s so much about the personnel,” Strausser said. “… Obviously across the board it wasn’t good enough and we know that and our guys are excited to get out there and fix that and get it right.”

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Defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski counted 20 missed tackles in the loss to Michigan State. That’s about double the normal amount.

The Broncos emphasized tackling during the bye week, but it’s typically an issue in openers.

“You can try to simulate and do as much as you can during camp, but you can’t continually do it or you’ll beat your team up,” Kwiatkowski said. “You have to be creative with different drills to try to emphasize it, but it doesn’t replace live tackling. Bags don’t spin and bags don’t hit back.”

Said senior linebacker J.C. Percy: “We scrimmage each other (in camp), but it’s not the same as it is in a game atmosphere. You don’t have the adrenaline like you’d have in a game, you don’t have the crowd noise. It’s different.”

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The last two times that Boise State lost its season opener, it also lost the next game. The Broncos fell to Georgia and Oregon State in 2005 and South Carolina and Washington State in 2001.

Chadd Cripe is in his 11th season covering Boise State football for the Idaho Statesman. He also is a voter in The Associated Press Top 25. Contact him at ccripe@idahostatesman.com or 377-6398. His Twitter account is @IDS_BroncoBeat.