Boise State football won’t play in Arizona Bowl — latest in string of bowl disappointments
The Boise State football team will not play in a bowl game for the second year in a row.
The Broncos qualified for a bowl for the 24th straight season, and they were set to face Central Michigan in the Arizona Bowl on Friday. They were forced to pull out of the game Monday after a spike in COVID-19 cases at Boise State.
Boise State said in a statement Monday afternoon that it had shut down all team activities as a result of COVID-19 protocols — ending the Broncos’ season.
“We feel for the young men in our program who were very much looking forward to closing out their season, and for some, their football careers,” Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey said in a statement. “I would personally like to thank Kym Adair and her team at the Arizona Bowl for putting together a first-class student-athlete and fan experience that we are extremely disappointed to miss.”
Boise State opted out of playing in a bowl game last year after navigating a season that was shortened because of COVID-19.
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy was first to announce Boise State’s withdrawal Monday afternoon on Twitter. The Arizona Bowl confirmed it later in the afternoon and said it was in discussions about inviting another school to face Central Michigan.
“We are doing everything in our power to ensure that the Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl will be played,” Ali Farhang, chairman of the Arizona Bowl Board of Directors, said in a press release, “and rest assured our bowl leadership will exhaust every option to bring Tucson a bowl experience this year.”
In his post on Twitter, Portnoy said Washington State should poll its players to see whether they want to play in the Arizona Bowl or Sun Bowl after Miami was forced to withdraw from that game because of its own COVID-19 issues.
Later Monday evening, the Sun Bowl announced that its game would survive on New Year’s Eve — with Central Michigan facing the Cougars. The Sun Bowl is on network TV (CBS) and has a payout that dwarfs that of the Arizona Bowl, which had no TV home and was going to be streamed for free on Barstool. Now it is canceled.
Portnoy and Barstool Sports podcast hosts Dan “Big Cat” Katz, Adam “Rone” Ferrone and Caleb Pressley were scheduled to be part of the Arizona Bowl broadcast crew.
Central Michigan was already in Tucson, Arizona, for the game — having arrived on Sunday. Boise State was scheduled to travel on Tuesday, but the Broncos advance team, including its equipment truck, was already in Arizona.
As the omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads throughout the country, several bowl games have already been affected.
The Hawaii Bowl was canceled because of an outbreak in Hawaii’s program. The Military Bowl, which was supposed to pit Boston College against East Carolina, and the Fenway Bowl, between Virginia and SMU, also were canceled. The Arizona Bowl became the latest victim.
Texas A&M was forced out of the Gator Bowl because of a COVID-19 spike in its program, and Rutgers, which has a losing record, will step in to face Wake Forest.
The Broncos made it through this season relatively unscathed when it came to positive cases of COVID-19. The team’s vaccination rate climbed into the high 80% range, no games were canceled and only a handful of players missed time because of protocols following a positive test.
Boise State football coach Andy Avalos allowed players three days off to go home for Christmas. They were scheduled to return to Boise on Sunday, but some didn’t arrive until Monday because of weather delays at the Boise Airport and across the country. Boise State has not reported how many positive cases it has, but Dickey said symptomatic and asymptomatic players were tested upon returning to campus and enough positive cases were discovered to warrant testing the whole team.
With no bowl game, Boise State’s season comes to an end with a 7-5 record. It’s the first time the Broncos have lost five games in a season since 2013.
Bitter way to end a career
Ending the season without a bowl game is an especially tough pill for many of the Broncos’ seniors.
Running back Cyrus Habibi-Likio, who joined the Broncos this year after four years at Oregon, was looking forward to taking the field one last time. He and defensive back Kekaula Kaniho declared for the NFL Draft on Christmas Eve, but both planned to play Friday.
Habibi-Likio finished the season second on the team with 374 rushing yards and added two touchdowns on the ground. He also caught 23 passes for 213 yards. He took to Twitter to vent his frustrations on Monday.
“It breaks my heart to not be able to finish how we wanted,” he wrote. “I appreciate everyone who has been a part of my collegiate career.”
Boise State linebacker Riley Whimpey was set to play the final game of his football career.
Whimpey — a fifth-year senior — is out of eligibility. But after initially planning to take a stab at the NFL, he announced earlier this month that he will not pursue a professional playing career.
The 6-foot-1, 231-pound native of San Clemente, California, said he’s stepping away from the game because he has sustained a multitude of concussions during his career. His most recent concussion was sustained in the Broncos’ regular-season finale at San Diego State.
“Something that I’ve learned is being present and grateful for every moment we get,” said Whimpey, who plans to pursue a career as a dentist. “You never know when it’s going to be the last time you step on the field.”
Whimpey led Boise State with 83 tackles in 2019 and with 61 last season. This year, he finished second on the team with 71 stops and recorded the sixth sack of his career.
Broncos’ recent bowl curse
Pulling out of the Arizona Bowl continues a trend of difficult bowl outcomes for the Broncos, who haven’t won a bowl game since they knocked off Oregon in the 2017 Las Vegas Bowl.
“It has been a weird stretch of bowl games the last few years,” Boise State defensive tackle Scott Matlock said before Boise State had to withdraw. “Whether it be losing in the championship game, opting out, which sends you down a weird path, or losing a bowl where you felt like you were the better team, it’s always on your mind.”
The Broncos traveled to Dallas to face Boston College in the 2018 First Responder Bowl, but the game was suspended with a little more than 5 minutes left in the first quarter and eventually canceled because of severe thunderstorms.
In 2019, the Broncos drew Washington in the Las Vegas Bowl. Facing former Boise State head coach Chris Petersen in his final game before retirement, they lost 38-7.
Boise State qualified for a bowl game last year, but after navigating a season that was ravaged and shortened by COVID-19 — which forced the cancellation of two of the Broncos’ scheduled contests — and losing in the Mountain West championship game, the players voted to opt out.
That snapped a streak of 18 straight bowl appearances and left the Broncos to yearn to hoist a bowl trophy for another year.
“I hadn’t thought about that three-year span, but that kind of sucks,” said Boise State quarterback Hank Bachmeier, adding that he was looking forward to another shot at getting back in the win column after the Broncos ended the regular season with a 27-16 loss at San Diego State.
This story was originally published December 27, 2021 at 1:50 PM.
