At Boise State football home opener, things will look a little different
Boise State football finally returns to Albertsons Stadium on Friday night, with the Broncos taking on Eastern Washington in their 2025 home opener.
A few things will be different from what fans are accustomed to on campus and on The Blue.
The most obvious difference will be the north end zone, of course, which will remain under construction and won’t seat people throughout this season. The closure of that section of the stadium will reduce capacity from 36,363 to around 33,000.
And there’s another change — a permanent one — that will be quite obvious.
Since 1970, Boise State’s team has been on the east sideline of the stadium, next to the student section.
But in preparation for the redone north end zone, which will create a player entrance closer to the west side of the stadium, the Broncos will be on the opposite side of the field now, underneath the press box and Stueckle Sky Center, which houses luxury suites.
The new location for the visitors’ locker room, starting in 2026, will be in the northeast corner of the stadium. During a tour of the new north end zone, Senior Associate Athletic Director Nathan Burk said the change of sidelines will ensure teams won’t have to cross paths at halftime or after a game.
“It’ll be interesting, for sure,” senior defensive lineman Braxton Fely said Tuesday. “All three years that I played here, we’ve been on (the east) sideline. I think it shouldn’t change us too much. Some would say that’s adversity, but I think we’ll just be flipping sides and playing the ball.”
The players probably won’t think much of it, but the student section could find itself with some extra responsibility — the visiting team will be much more in earshot.
After losing the opening game of the season at South Florida, head coach Spencer Danielson isn’t spending any time at all on sidelines.
“We’ve got bigger issues right now. ... Our guys are gonna line up on whatever sideline they tell us,” Danielson said. “They switch a game time, we’re gonna switch a game time. They tell us we’re wearing practice jerseys, we’re going to wear practice jerseys.”
The evening kickoff means the late-summer sun will hit the Eastern Washington sideline a little more than Boise State’s, but not in any significant way. Both teams will be experiencing some September heat in the 90s.
Boise State vs Eastern Washington
- Where: Albertsons Stadium (33,000, turf)
- TV: FS1 (Noah Reed, Robert Smith)
- Radio: KBOI 670 AM/KTIK 93.1 FM (Bob Behler, Pete Cavender)
- Records: Boise State 0-1; Eastern Washington 0-1
- Series: Boise State leads 13-6.
- Vegas betting line: Boise State by 29.
- Weather: 94 degrees, partly cloudy, 0% chance of rain
This story was originally published September 4, 2025 at 1:48 PM.
