Is Boise State’s season ruined by loss? No, but there’s cause for concern

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Boise State football’s season isn’t dead in the water just yet. It might be floating in Tampa Bay, though, treading water while there’s still a life jacket nearby. Reaching that life jacket, however, might just mean the Broncos have to go undefeated the rest of the season.

No. 25 Boise State dropped its season opener 34-7 to South Florida on Thursday evening, marking the program’s worst loss since a 56-19 thrashing at No. 10 Washington in the 2023 opener.

The last time the Broncos lost by such a margin to an unranked team was also against Washington, a 38-7 defeat in the 2019 Las Vegas Bowl.

It’s difficult to say that a team’s season is “over” in terms of postseason goals before most other teams have even played a game. But Thursday night’s defeat won’t reflect kindly on Boise State once the College Football Playoff committee begins ranking teams in November — not unless BSU piled up nothing but wins until then.

The Broncos entered this game as touchdown favorites, against a team that went 7-6 a year ago and beat only one opponent with a winning record, making the loss even starker. And then there was the manner in which it occurred, with multiple areas looking as if they need massive improvement — tackling, secondary coverage, the running game and special teams among them.

The special teams unit gave up a 45-yard touchdown pass on a fake punt, although Boise State coach Spencer Danielson said that was the staff’s fault for not recognizing that a South Florida backup quarterback was in the game in the punter position.

Tackling in the open field looked as suspect as last season, as USF quarterback Byrum Brown enjoyed some strong runs in addition to completing four passes of at least 24 yards, including a 55-yarder that set up a touchdown.

Even on the fake punt, the USF receiver eluded three potential tackles.

“We didn’t execute well enough tonight. That’s it, and that’s all me,” Danielson said after the game. “And those are things that we struggled with last year, and we were able to overcome and win games even though they showed up. … That didn’t happen tonight.”

For a team that has aspirations of returning to the CFP for the second straight season, getting blown out by a USF team that’s gone 7-6 each of the past two years will make a difference. The Group of Five representative in the playoffs figures to come from the Mountain West or the American Athletic Conference, and an AAC team that’s not expected to compete for that league’s title just hammered the MW favorite.

Danielson said after the game that he’s “not looking” at the big picture, including any talk about the postseason. However, he did say that the Broncos have a “great schedule” ahead of them. The tricky part will be running the table with that schedule.

The biggest nonconference challenge left is playing on the road against last year’s national championship runner-up, No. 6 Notre Dame, on Oct. 4. Heading into the season, it was a game Boise State could drop because of the quality of the loss — similar to the Broncos’ 37-34 to No. 7 Oregon last season — without worrying much about CFP impact.

With Thursday night’s loss, the game against the Fighting Irish feels much more urgent. If Boise State wins that game, it would act as a mulligan for the South Florida loss. If the Broncos lose to Notre Dame, they certainly have no margin for error in the conference, because a loss there would leave them at 9-3 at best heading to the Mountain West title game — presuming they make that.

They likely would be in a position of needing other teams to slip up, and might still need that even with a 10-2 overall record. The bright side for Boise State is that it is still the MW favorite, particularly if some of the primary issues can be addressed.

A tough night for the running backs, in the shiny afterglow of Ashton Jeanty, can be remedied, as well as an uneven night for an offensive line that returned four starters. The same could be said for the secondary. While troubles defending deep balls seem to be carrying over from last year, it’s a unit composed solely of returning upperclassmen.

If they don’t clean things up, there are players like redshirt junior Jaden Mickey and redshirt sophomore Derek Ganter Jr. champing at the bit.

“We’ve got to take accountability for it and not freak out,” redshirt senior Matt Lauter said of Thursday’s loss. “It was a tough loss, super out of character today, (but) we’re going to rally together and just take it one game at a time, like we’ve done in years past.”