Second-half struggles doom Boise State in opener against Group of Five contender UCF
For the better part of two quarters, the Boise State football team looked like it was going to run away with Thursday’s heavyweight fight with Group of Five contender UCF. But the Knights got the last laugh.
The Broncos led by as many as 21 points in the second quarter, but the Knights responded with 23 unanswered points and shut down Boise State’s offense in the second half to secure a 36-31 win to open the season.
“We didn’t come out in the second half with the right energy or with the right plan on my end,” Boise State offensive coordinator Tim Plough said after his debut.
Boise State was up 24-14 at halftime, but the wheels fell off the offense in the third quarter. The Broncos went three-and-out on all three possessions and finished the quarter with minus-7 yards of offense, compared to 181 by UCF.
“We’ve got to be able to get those chains moving and create some momentum and get a defense on its heels,” said Boise State coach Andy Avalos, who lost his first game as head coach. “When you can’t move those sticks and the defense doesn’t have to adjust up and down the field, it’s not that difficult on them.”
Boise State was without starting running back George Holani, who made the trip to the Bounce House but was a late scratch because of an injury. The offense was not the same without him. The Broncos finished the game with just 20 rushing yards, while UCF racked up 255.
“I really do think that’s the story of the game, just our lack of execution in the third quarter,” Plough said. “You can’t really get the tempo started unless you get off to a good start and get some yards on first down. We could never get the tempo going in the third quarter.”
UCF didn’t have much trouble getting things rolling in the second half. The Knights opened the third quarter with an eight-play, 84-yard scoring drive, which ended with an 11-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Dillon Gabriel to Tennessee transfer Brandon Johnson, who just barely kept his left foot in bounds.
Gabriel gave the Knights their first lead of the game on their next possession after he hit Jaylon Robinson on a perfect over-the-shoulder throw for a 21-yard touchdown, which put UCF ahead 28-24. Gabriel — a Heisman candidate — finished the game 25-of-37 for 318 yards and four touchdowns through the air.
“We lost the middle eight, and that’s where the swing happened,” Avalos said, referring to the end of the second quarter and start of the third. “We lost the final 4 minutes going into halftime. There were a lot of coachable moments, and that’s on us as coaches. We’ll make sure we get that squared away.”
Boise State briefly regained the lead in the fourth quarter thanks to cornerback Tyric LeBeauf’s second interception of the game. When the offense got back on the field, quarterback Hank Bachmeier found wide receiver Khalil Shakir on back-to-back passes — the second of which went for a 7-yard touchdown and gave the Broncos a 31-30 lead with 8:02 to play.
UCF responded on its next possession, though. The Knights put together a 10-play, 75-yard scoring drive that was capped by an 8-yard touchdown run by Northwestern transfer Isaiah Bowser. He finished with a career-high 172 rushing yards on 33 carries.
“That was a huge part going into this. Who is going to win the line of scrimmage?” Avalos said. “We started to establish the line of scrimmage early, but we lost control of it.”
Bachmeier, who beat out USC transfer Jack Sears again this fall to win the starting quarterback job, finished the game 25-of-39 for 263 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.
That interception was the key moment of the fourth quarter, as the Broncos drove toward the possible go-ahead score, trailing 36-31.
On third-and-4 from the UCF 35-yard line, Bachmeier scrambled toward the right sideline. He had gained a couple of yards and could have run out of bounds to set up a fourth-down play. Instead, he made a desperate throw across his body that was intercepted by Dyllon Lester.
Broncos start fast
After lightning delayed the start of Thursday’s game for nearly 3 hours, Boise State opened the scoring with a touchdown from its defense.
UCF needed just seven plays to drive inside Boise State’s 10-yard line on its first possession and looked like it was going to take an early lead. LeBeauf had other plans, though. He intercepted a pass in the end zone and returned it 100 yards to give the Broncos a 7-0 lead.
LeBeauf — making his first career start — tied former Boise State cornerback Jamar Taylor for the longest interception return in program history. He also became the first Boise State player since Donte Deayon to have two picks in a game. Deayon did so against BYU on Sept. 12, 2015.
“I just did what the coaches asked me to do,” LeBeauf said. “And when an (opportunity) presents itself, you have to take advantage of it.”
Following LeBeauf’s pick six, Boise State went on the offensive. On their next possession, the Broncos put together a 10-play drive that was capped by a 3-yard touchdown run by Andrew Van Buren, the Broncos’ leading rusher last season.
They went up 21-0 early in the second quarter after Shakir caught a short third-down pass, slipped a couple tackles and ran over a defender at the goal line. Boise State also had a drive end with a 31-yard field goal from Jonah Dalmas to go up 24-7 with 5:06 left in the first half.
Gabriel got UCF on the scoreboard twice in the second quarter, though. He found tight end Alec Holler on a 23-yard touchdown pass early in the frame, and he engineered a late scoring drive to keep the Knights in the game. On third-and-2, he sidestepped Boise State pass rusher Shane Irwin, who had him dead to rights, and found Titus Mokiao-Atimalala in the corner of the end zone for an 8-yard score that cut the Broncos’ lead to 24-14.
Boise State is back in action Sept. 10 as it welcomes UTEP to Albertsons Stadium for its home opener (7:30 p.m., FS1). But Thursday’s loss is going to sting for a while — mainly because everyone in the program wanted Avalos to get a win in his debut as the coach at his alma mater. Avalos was a linebacker at Boise State from 2000 to 2004.
“I really respect him and love working for him,” Plough said. “Wins and losses are going to come playing football, but he deserved a win tonight.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2021 at 2:14 AM.
