Talking heads questioning if Boise State should be in the College Football Playoff.
A Broncos player falling flat on his face (mask) while carrying the American flag as the team ran onto the field for the Fiesta Bowl.
A missed field goal on Boise State’s opening drive that was never close to even reaching the cross bar.
Nothing — and I mean nothing — seemed to be going Boise State’s way other than maybe being on time for the game.
The Group of Five badly needed something to hold onto, something the quintet of leagues could point to and say, “See, we belong!” And yet, it didn’t seem to be arriving.
The debate may rage on, and maybe it would’ve no matter what. But the fact remains, the final score of Boise State’s 31-14 loss to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl as part of the College Football Playoff quarterfinals is not a data point in favor of further monopolizing the postseason of college football’s highest level.
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Indiana belonged in the CFP because it lost just one game during the regular season. Even Oregon went undefeated and was the top team in the playoff seedings. Yet both were blown out in their first games of the postseason.
Even if it was a double-digit loss, Boise State deserved the right to play in Arizona on New Year’s Eve because the Broncos won their games during the regular season. That’s what gauging this thing should be all about.
“Hopefully everybody just watches the film. That’s been my big message all year is watch the film,” Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson said after the Fiesta Bowl. “With the expansion of the College Football Playoff, all you want is to give teams a chance. Everybody knew how to make the playoffs to start the season. There was no gray area. … You’ve got to go out and win.”
The tone of the Broncos’ defeat was established early, and it was one-sided in the fourth quarter. I can’t deny that.
Before a crowd that was sprinkled with more orange and blue than white and navy, some Boise State optimism evaporated when Drew Allar bought time in the pocket and provided star tight end Tyler Warren enough time to run across the field and find a gap in the Boise State defense. Allar delivered a beautiful pass, and Warren did the rest as he hauled it in while keeping his feet just barely in bounds in the back of the end zone for the first touchdown.
Any BSU energy utterly dissipated when Allar delivered another astonishing dime later in the first quarter from 38 yards out. Penn State wide receiver Omari Evans outraced all of Boise State’s defenders and caught his team’s second touchdown in the first 12 minutes of the bout.
And when Boise State badly needed a response, Ashton Jeanty uncharacteristically fumbled along the sideline, and it was recovered by Zakee Wheatley just in time before he ran out of bounds.
Jeanty only rushed for 104 yards — could you imagine thinking of that as a disappointing performance for anyone else? — and fell short of the FBS single-season rushing record by just 27 yards. Another disappointment from an overall dissatisfying outing for anyone who doesn’t grovel at the altar of the SEC.
“Ashton Jeanty is the best football player in the country, period, point blank,” Danielson said. “So you’re always ready for those explosive plays. But we believe in wearing a defense out. It’s hard when you’re digging yourself out of a two-score lead to really establish the run game the way we wanted to.”
That fumble was beginning to feel like Boise State was about to be outclassed. This was beginning to feel like the College Football Playoff first-round games that all concluded with one-sided results. This was beginning to feel like yet another mind-numbing round of discourse on social media about how Group of Five teams shouldn’t have a seat at the table.
Then, it began to feel like something else entirely.
Penn State lost a fumble of its own, preventing the Nittany Lions from capitalizing on their favorable field position. Later in the second quarter, Boise State finally found the end zone on a third-down touchdown run by Tyler Crowe.
That cut the lead down to seven points. All of a sudden we had a ball game.
Just when Penn State’s running game appeared it would be too much, the Nittany Lions went with trick plays on third downs and saw multiple drives sputter out. Just when Penn State’s defense was too fast for any Broncos play to work, Boise State quarterback Maddux Madsen began dealing. Just when the game was on its way to becoming boring, some coveted momentum had returned.
The Nittany Lions had talked all week about how seriously they were taking the threat of Jeanty, and it showed by how rapidly they swarmed the line of scrimmage each time he even came close to taking a handoff. He broke several tackles, sometimes on the same play, and never-ending swarms of Nittany Lions kept pouncing until Jeanty finally went down.
But because Penn State’s defense never let Jeanty leave its sight, that provided Madsen some opportunities to shine. You look at his stat line and see 23 of 35, 204 yards, one touchdown, and three picks and think, well how good could he be? But he was one of the reasons, along with Boise State’s pass rush that consistently pressured Allar, that the contest was close going into the fourth quarter. In fact, if not for the early missed field goal and a touchdown pass called back by penalty, Boise State would’ve been tied with Penn State going into the fourth quarter.
And to even keep a game close in the CFP seems to be an exception rather than a rule. Look at the first round of the playoff. Two ACC teams, one Big Ten team, and one SEC team all fell, and none of them were close to a win.
Then in the second round, No. 1-ranked Oregon was dismantled by Ohio State, while Arizona State of the Big 12 played above expectations and went to overtime against SEC runner-up Texas. I think there’s a solid argument for Boise State’s loss to Penn State being the second-most competitive game in the CFP thus far.
Perhaps the most powerful teams aren’t always from the power conferences.
“To me,” Danielson said, “it’s all about put the ball down, play the game.”
After this season, I’ve come to believe that arguing no Group of Five team should have a spot in the College Football Playoff is to lose sight of what this sport is about.
Loving college football is to embrace the absurd. It’s to relish in the chaos. It’s to delight in the rise of the underdog.
And as I’ve said before, David vs. Goliath can’t happen if you don’t invite David to the fight. I say let Boise State, Tulane, and UNLV fight.
Maybe, just maybe, chaos will eventually ensue.
