Boise State plays a little snow football to complete sweep of Mountain West schedule
For one of the few times this season, the Boise State football team ended a game with its tradition of circling the field and shaking hands of fans after Saturday’s regular-season finale.
The fans were wearing Wyoming colors, but Boise State linebacker Riley Whimpey said it felt good to have a sense of normalcy after the Broncos’ 17-9 win.
“We haven’t been able to do that in a long time,” Whimpey said. “It was awesome to see their smiling faces and hopefully we can get back to that at Boise State sooner rather than later.”
Wyoming announced 2,978 fans attended Saturday’s game, marking the largest crowd the Broncos have played in front of this season, and everyone in War Memorial Stadium had to brave some daunting elements.
Snow began falling before kickoff and increased in intensity as the game wore on. Temperatures hovered below 20 degrees for much of the contest and dipped below zero with the wind chill.
Armed with snow shovels, Wyoming staff members did their best to unearth the yard lines during timeouts, but it was mostly a futile effort.
“Everybody in the world knows it’s tough and it’s cold out there, but at the end of the day, everybody still has a football game to play,” Boise State wide receiver Khalil Shakir said. “We can’t sit there and complain about the weather and forget that we still have to operate and execute our plays so we can end up with the (win), and that’s what we did.”
Despite the elements, Boise State’s defense put on what may have been its best performance of the season on a day when nature made offensive success a difficult proposition.
The Broncos didn’t give up a touchdown for the first time since a 55-0 win over Hawaii in 2015 and the first time on the road since a 48-0 win at San Jose State in 2010.
“In a game like this, you want to see your defense step up and they were able to do that,” Boise State coach Bryan Harsin said. “I thought our front seven did a really good job of tackling and we were able to do some things on the back end.”
Boise State shut down Wyoming’s rushing attack, which came into the game ranked No. 9 nationally with 247 yards a game. The Cowboys managed just 82 yards on the ground, with 59 coming from running back Xazavian Valladay, who led the Mountain West last season with 1,265 rushing yards.
Wyoming finished the game with just 146 yards of offense, completed just four passes for 64 yards and went 2-for-17 on third down.
The Broncos (5-1 overall, 5-0 Mountain West) also sacked Wyoming’s quarterbacks five times. Five different players contributed to the sacks, led by redshirt freshman Isaiah Bagnah, who finished with two in his first game starting for STUD Sam Whitney, who suffered a season-ending injury at Hawaii.
“We had the mentality going into the week that we needed to be physical and stop the run, and our coaches put us in a great position to be able to do that,” Whimpey said. “At the end of the day, we went out there and did our one-eleventh and we all executed tonight.”
The offense needed some help Saturday, especially after quarterbacks Jack Sears, Cade Fennegan and Andy Peters were inactive for undisclosed reasons, leaving Hank Bachmeier and Chase Cord to take the snaps.
Cord hadn’t played all season as he has continued to recover from injuries suffered last season and offseason surgery. He didn’t play Saturday, but Harsin said he could have in an emergency.
“Chase is a team player, and he had himself ready to go for whatever it was we needed him to do,” said Harsin, adding that going into a game with just two active quarterbacks is a situation he hopes to never be in again.
Bachmeier’s first pass of the game was intercepted by C.J. Coldon, and the Cowboys turned it into a 3-0 lead thanks to a 42-yard field goal by John Hoyland. Hoyland connected on two more field goals Saturday, including one from 36 yards that cut the Broncos’ lead to 10-6 in the third quarter.
The Broncos decided to keep the ball on the ground on their second possession and opened the drive with three straight carries by Andrew Van Buren. They mixed in a few sweeps by Shakir, who lined up in the backfield on what turned out to be a 19-yard completion, which put the ball on Wyoming’s 3-yard line.
Two plays later, Bachmeier found running back George Holani on a 4-yard touchdown pass, welcoming the Broncos’ workhorse back after he missed three games because of an apparent knee injury suffered Oct. 31 at Air Force.
Holani’s comeback didn’t last long, though. He left the game early in the third quarter, and trainers were looking at his left knee.
Holani didn’t return, but Van Buren finished with 79 yards on 25 carries and plunged his way into the end zone from 2 yards out to give the Broncos a 17-6 lead in the final seconds of the third.
Bachmeier finished the game 19-for-28 for 181 yards.
“It was difficult to throw the ball as the game went on,” Harsin said. “Some of it wasn’t pretty, we know that, but that’s football and certainly it is in the conditions we played in.”
Freshman kicker Jonah Dalmas connected on a 34-yard field goal in the second quarter and the Broncos went into halftime with a 10-3 lead, but Boise State’s special teams left 10 points on the field.
With less than 6 minutes left in the half, Tyric LeBeauf blocked a punt and freshman cornerback Jaylen Clark scooped it up at the Cowboys’ 22-yard line and scored, but a block-in-the-back penalty negated the touchdown.
The Broncos still got the ball on Wyoming’s 20, but after three plays, they were forced to settle for another field-goal attempt, which went awry. Holder Conner Riddle bobbled and dropped a high snap, and by the time he collected the ball, Wyoming’s defenders were all over him.
Boise State got one last chance at first-half points, but the Broncos went to the locker room without them after a bizarre sequence.
In the closing seconds of the half, Bachmeier found Shakir on a 23-yard pass to Wyoming’s 2. The Broncos rushed up to the line as if they were going to stop the clock with a spike, but Bachmeier took the snap and rolled to his right.
A referee prematurely blew the whistle, ending the play, though, and after a conference, officials put 2 seconds back on the clock. The Broncos couldn’t capitalize, though, as a pass Bachmeier lofted to Shakir in the end zone fell incomplete.
He may not have come down with that touchdown, but Shakir played a huge role in the game. He finished with eight catches for 105 yards — marking his fourth 100-yard receiving game of the season — and he carried the ball five times for 34 yards.
“I love when the ball is in my hands. I think everybody knows that,” Shakir said. “So I just did what I could do whenever the ball was thrown my way to keep the offense pushing.”
In a year when the Broncos have had to constantly adjust their roster with players missing time because of COVID-19 and had two games canceled by the virus, Harsin said it was fitting that they overcame the elements and a daunting opponent to earn their spot in the Mountain West championship game on Dec. 19.
It’s the fourth straight year that Boise State will play for the title, and they’ll be playing for their fifth conference championship. They’ve won two of the last three, and to win it again they’ll have to beat undefeated San Jose State (6-0, 6-0) — a team the Broncos were scheduled to play at home on Nov. 28 but the game was canceled less than 5 hours before kickoff.
“For the consistency piece, it says a lot about the players in this program,” Harsin said. “They have standards every year that they set for themselves in the offseason.”
There was a lot of chatter on social media about the Broncos ducking San Jose State, but Shakir said the players ignore that and they can’t wait to face the Spartans with the title on the line.
The title game is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. MT Saturday (Fox) at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas.
“Regardless of the location of the game or the weather or whatever it is, this team is going to go out there and give 100%,” Shakir said. “We know at the end of the day the job’s not done yet.”
This story was originally published December 12, 2020 at 10:28 PM.
