Efficiency, explosiveness and ‘a lot of rhythm’: Jeanty, Madsen lift Broncos’ offense
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Big night on The Blue
Boise State secured a historic 21-7 win over UNLV in the Mountain West championship game to lock up a berth in the College Football Playoff. Read all our coverage here.
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Pushing aside a UNLV defender like he was barely there, Boise State junior running back Ashton Jeanty exploded into the open blue space.
Just a few yards to his right, his teammates on the sideline were flashing by. The only person on Albertsons Stadium’s field who matched Jeanty’s speed for a moment — as the Rebels’ defense chased hopelessly — was head coach Spencer Danielson, who was in a sprint.
“I beat him for a couple of steps,” Danielson said Friday night, laughing.
No one was catching Jeanty, on the sideline or on the field.
Under the bright lights of prime-time TV on Fox in the Mountain West championship game, Boise State’s Heisman Trophy candidate stormed to a 75-yard touchdown run to give the Broncos a stranglehold on victory after a dominant first half.
Jeanty’s sixth touchdown run of at least 75 yards this season made it 21-0 just prior to halftime. No. 10 Boise State (12-1) didn’t score again, and didn’t need to, cruising to a 21-7 win over No. 19 UNLV (10-3).
The victory secured a berth in the 12-team College Football Playoff for the Broncos, who most likely will get a first-round bye as one of the four highest-ranked conference champions.
In a game billed to be a tight one — Boise State was a 4-point favorite after edging the Rebels 29-24 in the regular season in Las Vegas — the Broncos made sure things never got that close. They scored touchdowns on three of five first-half drives, covering 124 yards in 16 plays combined on the first two.
“I think you look at our offense and just the efficiency of throughout the whole (game), there was a lot of rhythm,” redshirt sophomore quarterback Maddux Madsen said.
Boise State racked up 236 yards of offense in the half, including a first quarter that saw the hosts put up 112 yards to UNLV’s 14. Madsen threw a 22-yard TD pass to Latrell Caples in the first quarter and scrambled for a 14-yard TD run in the second.
Leading 14-0, the Broncos got the ball back at their 20-yard line with 1:16 left in the half. They didn’t need to force anything, so Madsen handed off to Jeanty for a gain of 5 yards. And the clock ran. Madsen then handed off to Jeanty with 40 seconds remaining. Ten seconds later Jeanty was celebrating in the end zone, having made a cut in the backfield that allowed him to burst through a hole in the middle of the line, and then sprint right after avoiding a tackle.
“Once he gets to that second level, he’s a really good player,” said UNLV linebacker Jackson Woodard, the Mountain West defensive player of the year. “He’s going to make plays, but we’ve got to limit it.”
In the second half, the Rebels limited the Broncos, who had just 127 total yards in those two quarters. They punted five straight times, on every drive except the last, when Jeanty rushes picked up a pair of first downs and allowed them to run out the clock.
Madsen finished the night 18-for-27 for 158 yards, with 107 of those in the first half. The TD throw to Caples was a dart that beat good coverage, and he also had a 40-yard strike over the middle to tight end Matt Lauter on a scoring drive.
“Everybody knows we got the best football player in the country standing by right next to (Madsen),” Danielson said. “But how he’s able to operate the offense, make the throws he needs to make, and be smart with the football, that’s championship football.”
Jeanty finished the game with 209 yards rushing and 223 total yards. His longest run of the night against UNLV in October was 16 yards — on the Broncos’ first play Friday night, he broke away for an 18-yard run.
Then he was bottled up for a while, but keeping Jeanty from a game-breaking moment is all but impossible, as he showed with the crucial 75-yard TD. In the second half he had only two runs of 10 yards or more, his last chance to impress Heisman Trophy voters. He’s a lock to be one of the five finalists when the trophy is awarded on Saturday, Dec. 14., in New York City.
Jeanty also became Boise State’s all-time rushing leader during the game and now has 4,665 yards, far surpassing Cedric Minter’s total of 4,475 yards between 1977 and 1980.
So what did Jeanty have to say about the Heisman?
“Not only is this one of the best teams in the nation, but they’ve got one of the best players in the nation,” said college football’s leading rusher, who now has 2,497 yards on the season.
This story was originally published December 7, 2024 at 12:59 AM.
