BOISE, Idaho – Merle and Ruth Baptiste have been Boise State season ticket holders since 1974, when the Broncos were still competing in Division II. They were there when the program won a national championship in Division I-AA in 1980, when it made its first bowl game, the Humanitarian Bowl, in 1999, and when it won its first BCS bowl in 2006.
Friday night in chilly Albertson’s Stadium, they saw another first: Boise State qualified for a chance to play for the major college football club’s national championship. The Broncos’ 21-7 victory over UNLV gives No. 10 Boise State (12-1) an automatic berth in the first 12-team College Football Playoff.
“About time,” Merle said. “We should have played for a (national) championship a long time ago, but we were not respected by the big schools.”
The importance of this moment cannot be overstated, not only for Boise State, but for college football. It’s a sport that has always functioned like a country club, offering lifetime memberships at a Notre Dame or Alabama while handing out visitor passes at a Tulane or Western Michigan. Back in the BCS days, those in power were hauled before Congress and threatened with antitrust investigations for so blatantly excluding half of their party’s sports.
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Boise State and Ashton Jeanty edge UNLV to win MWC and close to CFP bid
A generation later, when the commissioners created the new 12-team Playoff, they finally saved a seat for the little guy. It’s fitting that the first Group of 5 program to take advantage of this was one of the original giant killers.
“We would have loved it if there had been a playoff; we felt like we could have played with anyone,” said Jared Zabransky, quarterback of Boise State’s undefeated 2006 Fiesta Bowl team. it must be a long time. I’m just grateful that these kids now have the opportunity to do that.”
Those kids, headlined by Heisman hopeful Ashton Jeanty, earned their second straight Mountain West championship on Friday, with Jeanty snapping a 75-yard touchdown and recording his sixth 200-yard game of the season (209). Then, seemingly all 36,663 fans in the sold-out Albertson’s Stadium swarmed onto the blue grass.
“Hope is powerful,” Boise State athletic director Jeremiah Dickey said. “You’ve seen it all year in terms of college football fans — when you provide more opportunities, it really lights a fire.”
Boise State fans were so excited that they tore down the goal post and dumped it in the nearby Boise River. They were part of history. Never before has a Group 5 team walked off the field knowing it was Playoff-bound. Even undefeated Cincinnati in 2021 couldn’t be certain until the committee made its final judgment.
“It’s such a great opportunity for all the schools,” Boise State coach Spencer Danielson said. “As a competitor you just want to have a chance.”
Zabransky and Ian Johnson did not get the opportunity to play for a national championship, despite finishing that season as the only undefeated team in the country. So did Kellen Moore and Doug Martin, who had their own 14-0 team three years later. Dan Hawkins coached a Boise team in 2004 that went undefeated in the regular season and ended up in the Liberty Bowl. Same in 2008 for an undefeated Chris Petersen team that ended up in the Poinsettia Bowl.
Danielson and Jeanty are the latest in a long line of coaches and players who have driven Boise State’s decades-long evolution from junior college to lower-level NCAA school, from FBS to national power. In early 2010, the Broncos regularly defeated the likes of Georgia, Oklahoma, Oregon and Virginia Tech. They reached three Fiesta Bowls and won all three. But they never got the call to join a power conference like fellow BCS breakers Utah and TCU.
The program remained stagnant for about a decade after that, still regularly winning ten or eleven games a year and a few Mountain West championships, but never having the kind of breakthrough season at the national level that UCF had in 2017 and ’18 or Cincinnati in 2020 and ’21. Both, plus Houston, UCF and SMU, also received their call-ups.
Just 13 months ago, Boise State was 5-5 and in danger of suffering its first losing season since 1997, when Dickey made the surprise decision to fire third-year coach Andy Avalos, a former Broncos linebacker whose team had won 10 games on the year. earlier. Dickey promoted then-35-year-old defensive coordinator Danielson, fully intending to make an outside hire after the season.
That is, until Danielson’s team won its next three games, reached the Mountain West Championship Game and upset UNLV, earning Danielson the full-time job.
With Jeanty returning after a 1,347-yard season, Boise was picked in the preseason to win the conference, but was hardly considered a front-runner to reach the CFP. The Broncos didn’t make their first appearance in the AP poll until Sept. 22, a few weeks after going to Eugene and taking Oregon down to the wire in seventh place. By then, Jeanty, who ran for 267 yards and six touchdowns in his team’s opener at Georgia Southern, was starting to gather early Heisman buzz. But there was little chance that a group of five running backs would actually reach New York.
Three months later, Jeanty just finished with more rushing yards in a regular season – 2,497 – than any player in history not named Barry Sanders. The only question now is whether it was enough to eclipse Colorado sensation Travis Hunter for the trophy.
“He’s showing week in and week out that he’s the best football player in the country,” Danielson said, “and I don’t think it’s even close.”
Jeanty is reason enough for Power 4 Playoff teams to be leery about signing Boise State as their opponent. Barring a surprise move by the committee on Sunday, the Broncos are likely to finish in the top four and get a bye into the quarterfinals. They would likely be placed in the Dec. 31 Fiesta Bowl for geographic reasons. Should Clemson upset SMU in the ACC Championship, Boise could even move up to No. 3.
If they are the No. 4 seed, it could set up a fascinating matchup with the No. 5 seed, which will either be the loser of the Big Ten or SEC championship games or beat Notre Dame 11-1.
“Good luck to anyone who … thinks they’re going to win the game (against Boise State),” UNLV coach Barry Odom said. “I think they are one of the best teams in college football right now, and I think they will do a great job representing this conference. They are built to run.”
They’ve done it before. Boise didn’t have nearly as respected a program as it does today, when Zabransky turned the famous Statue of Liberty play over to Johnson to beat a top Bob Stoops team from Oklahoma. The top-10 Virginia Tech team that the Broncos defeated in the 2010 season opener won the ACC that season. The Georgia team they destroyed in the 2011 season opener won 10 games and the SEC East.
But winning a College Football Playoff quarterfinal would be Boise State’s signature achievement yet — the football equivalent of the early Gonzaga NCAA Tournament teams that helped build that program into a new blue blood.
“This team wanted to leave a legacy where your actions will have a resounding impact for years to come,” Danielson said. “When you stand on that stage and see Bronco Nation swarming the field, those are moments that can change everything.”
For Boise State, and for college football.
(Photo of Boise State coach Spencer Danielson: Loren Orr/Getty Images)