Boise State’s offseason begins with a pressing question: Who is going to be the coach?
For most people, the New Year comes with a long list of resolutions, most of which will be forgotten by February.
But the Boise State football team can’t afford to be cavalier about its resolutions in 2021 if it’s going to maintain its status as one of the top Group of Five programs in the country.
Cincinnati earned the Group of Five’s New Year’s Six bowl bid this year and will face Georgia on Friday in the Peach Bowl. It’s the fourth year in a row that the bid went to a team from the American Athletic Conference. It went to Memphis in 2019 and UCF in 2017 and 2018.
Boise State hasn’t earned a New Year’s Six bid since the 2014 Fiesta Bowl against Arizona.
The Broncos’ 2020 season came to an early end Dec. 20 when the program announced it was opting out of playing in a bowl game, ending a streak of 18 straight appearances. They finished a unique season in the history of college football with a 5-2 record, ending the year with a loss to San Jose State in the Mountain West championship.
The starting lineup looked different almost every week as players missed time after testing positive for COVID-19 or because of contact tracing.
Starting quarterback Hank Bachmeier missed the Air Force and BYU games after testing positive for the virus, and the Broncos were thin at some key positions in a couple of other games.
They only dressed five interior defensive linemen and needed offensive lineman Ben Dooley to play on defense Nov. 28 against Colorado State, and Bachmeier and Chase Cord were the only quarterbacks active for the regular-season finale at Wyoming.
Adding to what was already a hectic year, coach Bryan Harsin was announced as Auburn’s new coach three days after the championship game.
Boise State is scheduled to open the 2021 season Sept. 4 against UCF in Orlando, Florida.
Here’s a look at the Broncos’ New Year’s resolutions.
Find a new coach
The Broncos’ top priority this offseason is to find a new coach. Harsin — a former quarterback at Boise State — led the Broncos to three Mountain West championships in seven seasons.
Two of the program’s top options to replace Harsin may also be former Boise State players, including quarterback Kellen Moore, who owns the NCAA record for most wins in a career after going 50-3 as a Bronco.
He threw for more than 3,400 yards in each of his four seasons and finished fourth in the voting for the Heisman Trophy as a junior.
Moore played for the Lions and Cowboys in the NFL before beginning his coaching career in 2018 as the quarterbacks coach in Dallas. He was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2019 — the year Dallas owned the NFL’s No. 1 offense, averaging 431.5 yards a game.
Boise State also could turn to one of the most productive linebackers in program history in Andy Avalos, who is Oregon’s defensive coordinator.
Avalos played at Boise State from 2000 to 2004, led the Broncos in tackles in each of his final three seasons and finished his career No. 4 all-time in program history with 365 tackles. He was an assistant coach at Boise State from 2012 to 2015 and was promoted to defensive coordinator in 2016 before leaving for Oregon following the 2018 season.
Montana State coach Jeff Choate could also be an option. He coached running backs, linebackers and special teams at Boise State from 2006 to 2011, and several former players have thrown their support behind him on social media.
Get healthy
Admittedly, that’s as cliche a resolution as there is, but the Broncos don’t need to drop a few pounds. They need to find a way to get some important players back on the field.
Coming off 1,014 rushing yards as a freshman, running back George Holani appeared in just three games thanks to an apparent knee injury suffered Oct. 31 at Air Force and played in just one full game — finishing with 100 yards on the ground in the season opener against Utah State.
Transfer quarterback Jack Sears lit it up in his first start as a Bronco, throwing for 280 yards and three touchdowns and adding a rushing score at Air Force, but he suffered an apparent head injury in the first quarter of Boise State’s loss to BYU and missed the rest of the season. He was expected to return Dec. 5 at UNLV, according to offensive coordinator Eric Kiesau, but that game was canceled because of COVID-19.
Cord was active for just one game this season, the Broncos’ win at Wyoming, and he never saw the field. He was limited in fall camp while recovering from offseason surgery, and Kiesau suggested earlier this month that another surgery may be in store for him.
The Broncos lost junior college transfer running back Taequan Tyler to an Achilles injury in the preseason. They lost versatile defensive lineman Demitri Washington, STUD Sam Whitney and reserve defensive linemen Keeghan Freeborn and Herbert Gums to season-ending injuries during the season.
Star wide receiver Khalil Shakir limped off the field early in the second half of the Mountain West championship game and didn’t return.
Figure out who is coming back
The NCAA offered all fall athletes an extra year of eligibility, but Harsin said in November that every program may not be able to carry that many athletes, given the scholarships that were expected to be available for incoming recruits.
“Just because the NCAA made the rule doesn’t mean every university is going to be able to follow that,” Harsin said. “Nobody knows what the situation is, and it’s not just seniors. It’s everybody on the team. There’s going to have to be some decisions made at the end of the year.”
The Broncos have 19 players listed on the roster as seniors, redshirt seniors or graduate students, three of whom they already know they have to replace.
Offensive tackle Nick Crabtree announced last week that he was stepping away from football to focus on his professional life. Tight end John Bates and two-time Mountain West Special Teams Player of the Year Avery Williams have declared for the NFL Draft since the season ended.
If the bulk of the senior class does return, the Broncos have a shot to make their fifth straight Mountain West title game and get back in the conversation for a New Year’s Six bowl game next season.
The other side of that coin is San Jose State and Nevada may return the bulk of their rosters, too, meaning Boise State will once again have its work cut out for it to get back to the top of the conference.
Fix the running game
Without Holani on the field, Boise State finished last in the Mountain West with 107.1 rushing yards a game.
Junior Andrew Van Buren filled in and led the conference with eight rushing touchdowns, but he only averaged 3.4 yards a carry and lost a step in the second half. That had a lot to do with the Broncos’ lack of depth in the backfield, thanks to injuries to Holani and Tyler and senior Robert Mahone’s suspension after an arrest in August. He eventually transferred.
If Holani and Tyler are healthy, it could be a different story next season, but the backfield took a hit Sunday when three-star running back Eli Sanders announced he was reopening his recruitment.
Sanders verbally committed in July, but Iowa and Iowa State have been recruiting him hard, according to 247Sports. He is one of two members of the class from Arizona powerhouse Chandler High, joining wide receiver Jalen Richmond, who signed Dec. 16 on early signing day.
The Broncos may have to look to the transfer market to add another running back.
Boise State is a different offense when Holani is on the field, but running backs take a beating over the course of a season, and the team has to find a way to add more quality depth behind him.
A productive running game takes a lot of pressure off of Bachmeier and the offensive line, which was thoroughly outplayed by San Jose State’s defensive front in the Mountain West championship game.
Win a big game
Boise State built its brand on shocking the world with wins in big games. Fiesta Bowls in 2007, 2010 and 2014 come to mind, and the Broncos own bowl wins over Power Five programs such as Oklahoma, TCU, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Arizona.
The Broncos haven’t been getting it done on the big stage lately, though.
They’re 1-2-1 in bowl games since a loss to Baylor in the 2016 Poinsettia Bowl. In 2018, the First Responder Bowl against Boston College was canceled by a severe thunderstorm, and the Broncos ended last season with a 38-7 loss to Washington in the Las Vegas Bowl. Their lone win in that span was in the 2017 Las Vegas Bowl against Oregon.
Boise State has made it to four straight Mountain West title games but lost two of them, including this season in a 34-20 setback against San Jose State. The Broncos are also 0-2 in their last two games against BYU, including a 51-17 loss this season in a game during which injuries and COVID-19 forced freshman quarterbacks Cade Fennegan and Andy Peters into action.
The Broncos are also 2-4 against ranked opponents the past three years.
Create more turnovers
The Broncos’ defense caught some heat this season for struggling in the second half of games, but if there’s an area on that side of the ball that needs to be cleaned up, it’s the lack of turnovers.
Boise State created just three turnovers this season — all interceptions. The Broncos forced six fumbles but didn’t recover any.
Those numbers are skewed by playing a seven-game season, but this isn’t a one-year problem. In 14 games last fall, the Broncos’ 10 interceptions tied for No. 61 in the country, and their nine recovered fumbles tied for No. 42.
Offensive line coach Brad Bedell has been criticized the past two seasons for struggles up front, which have led to an inconsistent running game and plenty of hits on Bachmeier. But maybe it’s time to turn some of that focus on the coaches who preside over a defense that has produced just 22 turnovers the past two seasons.
Arguably the team’s top cornerback, Jalen Walker, has started every game the past two seasons and has just one career interception. Williams also started 21 straight games at cornerback and didn’t have any. He finished his career with four picks, but hadn’t snagged one since 2018.
2021 schedule
Boise State has four nonconference games scheduled. The Mountain West schedule hasn’t been set. Dates for these games are tentative.
Sept. 4: at UCF
Sept. 11: vs. UTEP
Sept. 18: vs. Oklahoma State
Oct. 9: at BYU
This story was originally published December 29, 2020 at 4:00 AM.
