Boise State names four team captains for 2025. Here’s what it means to them
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Boise State named four new football captains ahead of the 2025 season.
- Captains Jayden Virgin-Morgan and Marco Notarainni are close off the field, too.
- Quarterback Maddux Madsen enters 2025 as a captain and Maxwell Award watch list pick.
Boise State football kicked off its fall camp Monday, and redshirt junior edge rusher Jayden Virgin-Morgan was the one to get things going for the Broncos.
Just as Ashton Jeanty did ahead of the 2024 season, Virgin-Morgan led the team hype circle for the first practice of the new season on Boise State’s DeChevrieux Field.
“It’s great, it’s an honor,” Virgin-Morgan told reporters following practice. “Being able to have the opportunity to do it the first time in the first practice of fall camp is amazing.”
Virgin-Morgan kept what he told the team close to his chest, but it comes as no shock that he was chosen to lead the first hype circle. He not only led the Broncos in sacks last season and enters 2025 as one of the veterans on defense, but the team also voted him as one of four captains for the upcoming season.
He will be a team captain alongside redshirt junior quarterback Maddux Madsen, redshirt senior linebacker Marco Notarainni and redshirt junior left tackle Kage Casey.
“It’s amazing. Looking back and seeing that this is really what I prayed for,” Virgin-Morgan said. “My entire life, this is exactly what I worked for.”
Being a captain at Boise State
The Broncos entered 2024 needing to replace all four captains, as last year’s group — Jeanty, Ahmed Hassanein, Jonah Dalmas and Alexander Teubner — graduated or headed to the NFL.
With such big shoes to fill, what exactly does it mean to be a captain at Boise State and lead a team that has realistic aspirations of returning to the College Football Playoff?
Just like Virgin-Morgan, Notarainni said being named a team captain was one of the biggest goals he set for himself when arriving on campus in 2021.
“Having that title is amazing, and I’m super blessed, but it doesn’t really change anything either,” Notarainni said. “We’ve still got a lot of guys that are huge leaders on our team.”
Notarainni and Virgin-Morgan grew up in the San Diego area and have been close since the latter arrived in 2022. Virgin-Morgan said that he knows it’s been a goal of Notarainni’s for as long as he’s known him, but he doesn’t expect the linebacker’s personality to change with the new title.
A similar theme followed for the two student-athletes voted captains on the offensive side of the ball: players who care as much about their teammates as they do about themselves.
“The amount of work and love I have for the guys on the team, and how they see that I’m pouring into them. … My favorite way to lead guys on the team is just pouring into them individually,” Casey said.
Before even being named captain, Casey would regularly pull teammates aside and talk one-on-one if he saw them struggling. It’s not uncommon for him to take teammates out for coffee if they need to talk, too.
There are some expectations that Casey could go the same way as Jeanty following this season: as a 2026 NFL Draft first-round pick. Casey said that although he’s aware of the hype surrounding him, he’s only using it to motivate himself further.
“I just love that football puts that pressure on your back because it weeds out the people who can handle it versus who can’t,” Casey said. “And with the extra pressure on me this year, I feel like I’m living for it. I love it.”
If there’s one player with obvious pressure on him this season, it’s Madsen.
The Bronco quarterback was named the Mountain West Conference preseason offensive player of the year earlier this month, and on Monday, was named to the Maxwell Award watch list. The Maxwell Award is given to the most outstanding player in college football. Boise State’s Jeanty won it last season, having narrowly missed out on the Heisman Trophy.
Madsen is taking that pressure, along with the honor of being named a captain, and converting it into confidence, he said Monday.
“I don’t think I can change who I am,” Madsen said. “I feel like, thus far, that’s why I was voted on by my teammates. And so to me, it’s kind of just leading by the example that I have the last three years.”
This story was originally published July 28, 2025 at 5:06 PM.
