Trick plays, a rising star: 5 takeaways from Boise State football’s spring game
Boise State football opened its doors to the public Saturday afternoon for the annual spring game, giving fans a first look at how the Broncos may line up come the fall.
In a departure from recent years, instead of simply pitting the offense against the defense, Boise State held a “draft” before the game, where team leaders picked their teams for a full-on scrimmage.
The blue team, led by quarterbacks Maddux Madsen and Cash Herrera, defeated the orange team 33-25. Redshirt sophomore Ty Tanner scored a pick six off freshman QB Jackson Taylor in the final minutes to secure the victory.
It’s tough to definitively glean too much information from a game that’s essentially a glorified practice. But we’re going to give it a go anyway.
Here are five things that stood out from Saturday’s spring game.
Rasean Jones is the real deal
Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson met with freshman wide receiver Rasean Jones ahead of the spring game with a goal for him for the summer: to stay humble and hungry.
Jones has quickly become one of the most exciting WR prospects this spring, and he backed it up Saturday. Jones recorded three receptions on three targets for 36 yards and a touchdown.
The touchdown, an 18-yard reception from redshirt senior quarterback Madsen, saw Jones pull short to receive an underthrown ball and haul the ball into his chest with one hand.
“That was fantastic. It makes my job lot easier, I’ll say that,” Madsen said of Jones. “Throw the ball up in the air, let him be one-on-one and make a play.”
Trick plays in the playbook?
The lack of trick plays has been a point of issue for Boise State fans in recent years.
The Broncos whipped out a few of them Saturday, including a flea flicker for a 62-yard touchdown between Madsen and sophomore wide receiver Qumonte Williams, and a 12-yard touchdown that saw 308-pound senior offensive lineman Tyler Ethridge line up as an eligible receiver before catching the ball and bowling in for a TD.
Madsen said that they hadn’t practiced many trick plays throughout spring, but coaches and players alike were clamoring to run some Saturday.
“We’re going to have trick plays every single game we go into,” Danielson said. “We don’t want any opponent to look at what we do and think, ‘Oh, we’ve seen this before.’”
Thoughts on the defense
The entire second half of the 28-minute scrimmage didn’t see a single touchdown, aside from the pick six from Tanner in the final minutes.
Danielson had mixed reviews on the defense. While the run defense didn’t allow any explosive plays, Danielson said “at times it was good, at times it wasn’t.” Part of that is because the defensive front wasn’t what it would typically be because of injuries and the “draft” nature of the scrimmage, but he still saw some big holes he’d like to get fixed.
On the flip side, he said he was “really excited” about the direction of the secondary. Despite giving up some big passing plays, at least six big passing plays were broken up by the secondary. A lot of the tackles also came from the defensive backs, including five apiece from redshirt junior Derek Ganter Jr. and sophomore Arthur de Boachie.
“It’s five slots open, maybe even more, depending on what we want to do,” Ganter said. “That’s what drives us. Everybody here, even outside the DB room, we want to compete, we want to find a way to win.”
‘Up and down’ spring for Maddux Madsen
Madsen ended the spring game completing six of his 11 pass attempts for 111 yards and two touchdowns. While looking mostly clean, he did miss an easy out-route to redshirt sophomore tight end Troy Grizzle, while his TD pass to Jones was also underthrown.
Danielson said that spring had been “a little bit too up and down,” with the veteran quarterback. Madsen agreed with that sentiment, saying that among his big goals this offseason is to become more consistent, and to allow teammates to be more explosive.
“How many times in the season are we going to run the 5-yard slant? It could be 50. How many times am I going to complete that? I want it to be 50,” Madsen said. “… these are the little, simple things that are going to impact our offense and myself in a huge way.”
Other notable performances
Here are some of the most notable stats from Saturday’s scrimmage:
Passing
Maddux Madsen: 6 for 11, 111 yards, 2 touchdown passes
Max Cutforth: 8 for 17, 83 yards, 1 touchdown pass
Jackson Taylor: 6 for 11, 64 yards, 1 interception
Rushing
Sire Gaines: 10 rushes, 41 yards
Keilan Chavies: 5 rushes, 30 yards
Zeke Martinez: 3 rushes, 20 yards
Harry Stewart III: 7 rushes, 10 yards
Receiving
Rasean Jones: 3 receptions, 36 yards, 1 touchdown
Qumonte Williams: 1 reception, 62 yards, 1 touchdown
Terrious Favors: 4 receptions, 32 yards
Matt Wagner: 3 receptions, 50 yards
Tackling
Derek Ganter Jr.: 5 tackles, 0.5 tackles for loss
Syncere Brackett-Lambey: 4 tackles, 0.5 tackles for loss
Mana Tuioti: 3 tackles, 0.5 tackles for loss
Roman Tillmon: 4 tackles
Jayden Virgin-Morgan: 3 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss
