After committing to ground game, Boise State is in the running for Mountain West title
Following a loss to Air Force on Oct. 16, the Boise State football team went into its bye week with a faltering offense and a porous defense, which led to a losing record through seven games for the first time in more than a decade.
About a month later, the Broncos are on the cusp of ending the regular season on a five-game winning streak and very much alive in the race for a fifth straight appearance in the Mountain West championship game.
To win the Mountain Division and play for the title, Boise State (7-4, 5-2 MW) first needs to go on the road and beat No. 22 San Diego State on Friday (10 a.m., CBS). The Broncos also need Air Force to lose its regular-season finale at home against UNLV, a game that kicks off at 1:30 p.m. on Friday.
There weren’t many people outside of Boise State’s locker room who thought the Broncos’ last game could have so much riding on it when they were 3-4 in mid-October, but this is what college football is all about, Boise State offensive coordinator Tim Plough said Monday.
“You want to play in a game like this, with things on the line against a Top 25 team on the road that a lot of people aren’t going to give you a chance to beat,” Plough said.
San Diego State has plenty to play for, too. To win the West Division title, the Aztecs (10-1, 6-1) simply need to beat Boise State. If they lose, then they need Fresno State to lose its regular-season finale at San Jose State in order to claim the West. If San Diego State loses and Fresno wins, the Bulldogs advance to the league title game.
Committed to the ground game
The Broncos have been on a four-game winning streak since their bye week, and first-year head coach Andy Avalos said it was sparked by a straightforward commitment: running the ball on offense, stopping the run on defense.
“We’ve committed ourselves to doing certain things, and that starts with everybody under this roof,” Avalos said. “This is football and it starts with a mentality and a physicality.”
Boise State’s rushing attack was one of the worst in the country before the bye, averaging 84.4 yards through the first seven games of the season. That was due, in part, to starting running back George Holani’s struggles to get on the field because of a hamstring injury, as well as a constant shuffling of starters on the offensive line.
With Holani back in the lineup, the Broncos are averaging 190.7 yards per game rushing during their winning streak. But that is going to get tested by San Diego State. The Aztecs are giving up only 77.4 yards a game, which leads the Mountain West and ranks No. 3 in the country.
Avalos said ending the regular season with a win is going to come down to one thing: matching San Diego State’s physicality at the line of scrimmage.
“They’re a big, physical team on both sides of the ball. That’s what they do,” Avalos said. “It’s going to be our biggest test up front on both sides.”
Holani is coming off three straight 100-yard rushing performances, including a season-high 117 yards in the Broncos’ win at Fresno State. He posted 114 yards on 14 carries and Boise State put up a season-high 239 rushing yards in its 37-0 win over New Mexico on Saturday.
That effort came against the Lobos’ rather hapless defense — they have given up at least 30 points in seven games — but it’s still astronomical growth for an offense that opened the season with 20 rushing yards in a loss to UCF and posted just 22 in a home loss to Nevada.
“It’s the whole group working together consistently now,” Plough said. “We had so many moving parts early on and we were trying to do so many different things schematically with different guys in the game. After the bye week, we tried to simplify it.”
Having Holani back has played a huge role. He missed three games because of a hamstring injury suffered before the season opener, and he wasn’t cleared by the team to play without limitations until the Broncos’ game at Fresno State on Nov. 6.
Holani went into the bye week with 123 rushing yards on the season. He now has 499 and averages 5.0 yards per carry.
“All of the run game looks better when somebody like that is carrying the ball,” Plough said.
Boise State will face a 3-3-5 defense for the second week in a row, and San Diego State is led up front by 270-pound junior Cameron Thomas — a two-time first-team All-Mountain West pick who leads the conference with 18 tackles for loss this season. He’s also tied with Nevada’s Tristan Nichols for the conference lead with 9.5 sacks.
“(San Diego State’s) defense has been tremendous for a stretch, and the new coaching staff has continued on with that,” Avalos said. “It will be the one of the most talented fronts we’ll play all year, if not the most talented. They play physical, they play aggressive and they do a great job in the secondary disguising coverage shells, and you’ve got to react when the ball is snapped.”
Offensively, San Diego State ranks No. 3 in the Mountain West with 184.2 rushing yards per game. The Aztecs are led by fifth-year senior Greg Bell, who ranks No. 4 in the conference with 907 yards on the ground and leads the team with seven rushing touchdowns.
“We’ve played some really good running backs this year, but where I think Greg Bell is special is not only can he make you miss in the hole, but if you’re wrong, it’s going to go the distance,” Boise State co-defensive coordinator Spencer Danielson said. “No one is going to catch him.”
Boise State’s defense has been much improved against the run since the bye. The Broncos gave up an average of 196.3 rushing yards through the season’s first seven games. They’re surrendering just 99.5 yards over the past four.
“The list of things we needed to clean up heading into the bye week was long,” Danielson said. “It’s exciting for us to continue to take steps because we still have a lot of room to grow.”
No word on Stetz
Plough said Monday that he’s hopeful sixth-year senior Jake Stetz will be able to play at San Diego State, but no definitive word on Stetz’s condition was offered.
Stetz, who has also played right and left guard this season, replaced Texas Tech transfer Will Farrar at center before the Broncos’ win at Colorado State on Oct. 30. Stetz exited Boise State’s win over New Mexico in the second quarter with a leg injury and did not return.
Stetz was replaced by sixth-year senior Donte Harrington, who will start if Stetz can’t play Friday, Plough said. Harrington started the first four games of the season at center before he was replaced by Farrar.
“We have a lot of trust in Donte,” Plough said. “He has played in a lot of games this year.”
Farrar was injured in practice during the week leading up to the Colorado State game and hasn’t played since. He was removed from the depth chart a couple of weeks ago, but Plough said he’s still hopeful Farrar will return this season — although he offered no definitive timeline.
Mountain West title race
The teams that meet for the Mountain West championship on Dec. 4 will be decided this weekend.
Boise State’s path is clear: Win at San Diego State and have UNLV — which lost 28-20 to the Aztecs last weekend — upset Air Force.
San Diego State’s path is even clearer: Defeat the Broncos. Fresno State, which defeated the Aztecs in the regular season, needs to win its game over San Jose State and have SDSU lose in order to claim the West Division title.
Air Force wins the Mountain Division if the Falcons, BSU and Utah State all win this weekend. That would leave the current three-way tie in place, and Air Force would advance because it has a better winning percentage against teams in the division than Utah State — as does Boise State — and owns a head-to-head victory over the Broncos.
The Falcons also clinch the division if they win, Boise State wins and Utah State loses. That would leave a two-way tie, and Air Force again has its win at Albertons Stadium on Oct. 16 as the tiebreaker.
Utah State, which had its clear path to the Mountain Division title blocked in a lopsided upset loss to Wyoming last weekend, can clinch only if it beats New Mexico on Friday and Boise State loses. That would leave the Aggies and Air Force tied, and Utah State owns that head-to-head tiebreaker thanks to a 49-45 win on Sept. 18.
Boise State owns the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Aggies by virtue of its 27-3 win on Sept. 25. That’s the winning scenario that comes into play for the Broncos if Air Force loses and Utah State wins.
BOISE STATE AT NO. 22 SAN DIEGO STATE
When: 10 a.m. Friday
Where: Dignity Health Sports Park, Carson, California
TV: CBS (Rich Waltz, Aaron Taylor, Sherree Burruss). That’s channel 2 on Sparklight and DirecTV and channel 2 or 5251 on Dish Network.
Radio: KBOI 670 AM/KTIK 93.1 FM (Bob Behler, Pete Cavender)
Records: Boise State 7-4, 5-2 MW; San Diego 10-1, 6-1 MW
Series: Boise State is 3-3 against San Diego State. The Aztecs won the most recent meeting 19-13 at Albertsons Stadium in 2018.
Vegas line: Boise State by 2.5
Weather: High of 78 degrees, 0% chance of rain, 8 mph winds
