Boise State football will face Chris Petersen’s Washington Huskies in bowl game
The Boise State football team will face former coach Chris Petersen and the Washington Huskies in this year’s Las Vegas Bowl.
The game is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. MT Dec. 21 at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas (ABC), and it will be a reunion for current Boise State coach Bryan Harsin and Petersen, who announced on Dec. 2 that he will step down after six seasons at Washington. Harsin was Petersen’s offensive coordinator from 2006 to 2010 at Boise State.
Harsin called it an “obvious story line,” but he is concerned it will overshadow the game.
“It is what it is, right?” Harsin said Sunday, after the pairing was announced. “I don’t think our opinions, as coaches, matter in that situation.”
Said Petersen, at his press conference: “Personally speaking, there’s a lot of other teams that I’d probably like to be playing for this last time.”
Petersen was Boise State’s offensive coordinator from 2001 to 2005 and head coach from 2006 to 2013 (92-12 record). Boise State beat his Huskies 16-13 in the 2015 season opener in Boise in the only previous time that Petersen has coached against the Broncos.
“That was different because almost all of (the players) we were involved with, so that was a really, really difficult situation,” Petersen said.
Petersen still has a connection to some players on the Broncos’ roster. Defensive tackle David Moa and safety Kekoa Nawahine, both seniors, committed to Boise State while Petersen was the head coach.
“It’s kind of a poetic ending to my career here at Boise State,” Nawahine said. “I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity that I was given by him and also the coaching staff that came in after him. I think it will be a fun ending to how my career has played out here.”
Moa gave Petersen his verbal commitment after an in-depth phone conversation, but the two never met face-to-face until the Broncos’ win in Albertsons Stadium in 2015.
“Everything I knew about the guy just came true and it’s going to be a special moment to play him one more time,” Moa said. “I’m very excited for what’s to come and I promise you this team is.”
Including Petersen, the Huskies’ coaching staff features nine former Boise State coaches or players: co-defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan, defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake (who was named Petersen’s successor), wide receivers coach Junior Adams, running backs coach and recruiting coordinator Keith Bhonapha, linebackers and special teams coach Bob Gregory, offensive line coach Scott Huff and strength and conditioning coach Tim Socha.
Moa said Huff was his favorite coach when he was on the Broncos’ staff, and he said the Las Vegas Bowl will be special for senior offensive linemen John Molchon, Garrett Larson and Eric Quevedo. Huff has the closest ties to the current roster because he was on the Boise State staff through the 2016 season. He coached four of the Broncos’ starting offensive linemen and recruited the fifth.
“That’s going to be a special moment for them to share with him,” Moa said. “But at the end of the day, he’s on the other team so we’ve got to go get that win against him.”
Boise State is heading to the Las Vegas Bowl for the fifth time since 2010, and it will face Washington in a rematch of the 2012 Vegas Bowl, which the Broncos won 28-26 under Petersen.
The Broncos (12-1, 8-0 MW) are 4-0 in the Las Vegas Bowl. They last played in the game in 2017 and beat Oregon 38-28. They also appeared in the game three straight years from 2010 to 2012 when it was known as the MAACO Bowl Las Vegas and beat Utah (26-3), Arizona State (56-24) and Washington, respectively.
“We always travel well at the Vegas Bowl … and I think it will be a great matchup,” Harsin said. “Washington is very good, and I think our season has shown that we’re very good. And that’s kind of what you want to have in bowl games at the end of the year.”
Washington (7-5, 4-5 Pac-12) is coming off a 31-13 win over rival Washington State, but the Huskies lost three of their final five regular-season games, including a 20-14 setback at Colorado. The Huskies, who played in the Rose, Fiesta and Peach bowls the past three years, are early 3 1/2-point favorites against the Broncos.
After Saturday’s 31-10 win over Hawaii in the Mountain West championship game, Boise State moved up one spot to No. 18 in the season’s penultimate AP Top 25 poll and fell a spot to No. 18 in the Coaches’ poll. The Broncos remained at No. 19 in the season’s final College Football Playoff rankings, while Memphis earned the Group of Five’s New Year’s Six bowl bid at No. 17. The Tigers will face Penn State in the Cotton Bowl.
NOTES: Washington junior tight end Hunter Bryant has declared for the NFL Draft and won’t play in the bowl game, Petersen said. Senior left tackle Trey Adams also won’t play, he said. Quarterback Jacob Eason, another possible NFL prospect, will play, Petersen said. ... Game tickets are $81.75 through Boise State.
This story was originally published December 8, 2019 at 2:05 PM.
