Saturday, September 5, 2015

Boise State nips Washington

I watched the Boise State-Washington game with mixed emotions.
I've became a Boise fan over the years of their little uprising vs the national powers and became a big Chris Petersen fan because of it.
As a result of Petersen,I started to pull for the Washington Huskies as soon as he went there, as you could have seen last season as I added Washington to the PPM,so I wasn't sure how I would handle watching Petersen's return to the blue turf with his Huskies in tow as the underdog,despite their Power Five conference status.

It wasn't tough in the end,as I rooted for Boise State in a less than thrilling 16-13 win.
Yes,there was a heartstopper at the end when Washington's Cameron Van Winkle's 46 yard field goal attempt just missed with seconds to go that could have forced overtime,but it was otherwise was not the best game that I ever watched.

It had to be emotional for both teams and I doubt that you will ever see another game between Petersen and Boise State,
This wasn't a crazy crowd fueled with anger,it was more of a respectful crowd that was thankful to Chris Petersen for his part in building Bronco football,yet realized that time marches on and his time had passed.

Each team dominated a half and as a result,you had a close game that went to the end,but the Broncos do have some things that they need to address..
Most notably of these is special teams,which allowed a punt return for a touchdown,a punt block that gave Washington another three points and had an extra point blocked,that would have taken the long field goal try out of play with a conversion.
Take special teams out of play and this game looks very different as the Boise State defense allowed just six points and both of those off bad field position.
I liked what I saw out of Jeremy McNichols as the running back replacement for Jay Ajayi with 89 yards and two scores,but I wondered about some of the play calling,which was pretty conservative.
Perhaps this was a result as the familiarity with Chris Peterson and this happens sometimes when staffs that know each other well,so it will be interesting to see how that plays out over the next few weeks.

The Boise State defense is going to be very tough to beat in the Mountain West,if they play anything like they did against Washington in allowing just 29 yards rushing.
I'm already looking forward to seeing the Broncos against the option of Air Force,who gave Boise State their only conference loss last season.

I'm not going to have regular coverage of Boise State or anything,but perhaps on occasion,I'll type out a post especially on non-Saturday games.
PC is still rolling for now,so if I can keep on line,I have another post planned for tonight....

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