Boise State hosted college football’s biggest stage Saturday as running back Ashton Jeanty’s Heisman Trophy bid put the spotlight on the Broncos.
There’s another big moment in the big league ahead when the Broncos’ Playoff Fiesta Bowl quarterfinal takes place on New Year’s Eve.
Both the chance to compete for the national championship and Jeanty competing for the Heisman represent a new high in what has been a meteoric but steady more than two decades. These milestones are also a dramatic departure from just a year ago, when Boise State football reached a critical juncture in its story.
The Broncos ended their 2023 season with a 35-22 loss to UCLA in the LA Bowl, ending an 8-6 campaign. The six losses were the program’s most in a single season since 1997, just the second year after Boise State moved up to Division IA from Division I-AA.
Down years happen, even in dynasties.
Considering Boise State won 10-plus games 18 times from 1999 to 2022—including five of the six non-COVID seasons from 2016 to 2022—a six-loss campaign might seem counterintuitive.
However, with a 7-5 record in 2021, the Broncos have finished two campaigns in a three-year span with a winning percentage below .600. The program had not endured such a stretch since its first three seasons of IA membership.
College football emerged from this pandemic in a completely different place than when it entered.
Supreme Court decision National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston June 21, 2021, allowing athletes to monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL), was just another in a series of revolutionary changes. The SEC’s announcement one month after its expansion to include Oklahoma and Texas began the consolidation of power followed by the Big Ten disbanding the Pac-12 starting in 2022.
Boise State has defied the odds to become a powerhouse over the past two decades. In an ecosystem dominated by major conferences, NIL collections, and an open transfer market, how can the Broncos realistically continue to hit those odds?
So far, Spencer Danielson has provided the answer.
The 2023 season ended in disappointment but also foreshadowed the Broncos’ run to the College Football Playoff—and a fresh start.
Boise State fell to 4-5 after the Nov. 4 at Fresno State, facing real hopes of its first sub-.500 finish in 26 years. The Broncos took on poor New Mexico the following week, but coach Andy Avalos’ fate was sealed.
He was fired, and defensive coordinator Danielson was promoted to interim head coach. A member of the BSU staff since 2017, Danielson has spent some time getting to know the program and the road map to success there.
“My No. 1 goal,” Danielson said immediately after last year’s LA Bowl loss, “is to continue to make Boise State a place where players come, stay, develop, and play in the NFL.”
That’s a good feeling. Actually making them is another challenge.
The first step required a proof of concept, and keeping Jeanty in the blue was a good start.
On December 12, two days before the Heisman ceremony, Jeanty received the Doak Walker Award as the leading rusher in college football. In his speech via satellite, surrounded by family, the Texas native said: “That’s why I stayed at Boise State, because everything I wanted to accomplish, could happen in Boise.”
Jeanty could not have given a better one-sentence endorsement of Boise State as a player going forward in this new era of college football. His place in the first round of many of the NFL’s most ridiculous games is also a testament to the idea Danielson expressed last year.
In preparing players like Jeanty for the NFL, organizing the program like the NFL is another step in Danielson’s goal of maintaining Boise State’s place among the sports elite. In November, the university’s athletic department announced BroncoPRO, a revenue-sharing organization that combines front office management with a professional organization.
In just 13 months since Danielson took over, Boise State has transformed from a potentially fading power of the past to a program that is solidifying its future.
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