HARSIN PRODUCES ANOTHER MAGICAL PERFORMANCE AS BOISE STATE DOMINATES DUCKS IN LAS VEGAS

Posted on December 17, 2017

BY MIKE PRATER
@KTIK.COM

Bryan Harsin threw one career touchdown pass as a quarterback for Boise State.

In the final 10 games of this season, after a frustrating 2-2 start and a growing sea of complaints, the now-head coach of a psychotic roster of misfits and magical players threw one Hail Mary … and it absolutely worked.

It worked because Harsin just turned in the best coaching season of his career, by far. He took a .500 team with a fragile two-quarterback mess, and won a long-overdue Mountain West division title, an overall league championship and the Las Vegas Bowl on Saturday.

Final score: Boise State 38, Oregon 28

Final record: 11-3

Final national ranking: Somewhere in the Top 25 for the first time in three seasons.

All because of Harsin, who had to prove his moxey to his staff, players and Bronco Nation after that horrible loss to Virginia in September. He worked on that desperate, slow-roasting Hail Mary over the next 10 games …

He turned the Brett Rypien-Montell Cozart QB fiasco into a rare thing of beauty, mostly.

He pestered the offensive line, which got better every week for 14 straight games.

He helped turn JC transfer Cedrick Wilson into one of the best wide receivers in Boise State history and into an NFL player. The wide receiver group as a whole became a production machine after a slow start to the season.

Harsin played a role in the development of linebacker Leighton Vander Esch, an 8-man walk-on from Riggins who turned into a beast of a man Saturday, and now must ponder his own NFL future.

He juggled massive injuries at running back, tight end and on defense. Harsin even made 195-pound running back Ryan Wolpin look good (90 yards of offense and two TDs against the Ducks, including one creative score that involved four Broncos spinning and pirouetting Vegas-style near the goal line).

Despite all the ugly warts and hiccups and sloppy trick plays of this crazy and unforgettable season, the Broncos as a whole got better every week. More importantly, players got better every week. Coaches got better every week. By the end of the season, Boise State was a solid 4-for-4: Offense, defense, special teams … and coaching.

All because of Harsin.

Yes, he had significant help from his staff, starting with coordinators Zak Hill (offense), Andy Avalos (defense) and Kent Riddle (special teams). But he hired those coaches. He fired himself as playcaller in the offseason and gave the duties to Hill, who was more consistent as the season grew. Harsin gets the credit (or blame) for anything to do with the rise or fall of the entire program.

Right now, the program is rising.

All because of Harsin, who is 42-12 overall with two MW championships. He’s 6-4 against Power 5 teams (only three of those games were in Boise), he’s 3-1 in bowl games (including a Fiesta Bowl win) and 5-1 against the Pac-12 (only loss was this year’s 3OT game at Washington State).

Harsin & Co. struggled bad in the fourth quarter that night in Pullman, but as the coach said in his post-game trophy celebration Saturday, no team is perfect. No season is perfect. And no coach is perfect, not even Chris Petersen, who by the way, was 45-9 in his final 54 games at Boise State.

That’s only three wins better than Harsin – and Harsin didn’t have Kellen Moore.

Harsin does have Rypien for another season, so let’s see what happens moving forward as he tries to build a legacy as one of the most successful coaches in Boise State history …

Will Harsin entertain job offers? There’s nothing out there now, but he’s reportedly talked to Oregon about its vacancies each of the past two seasons, so he must be curious (BTW, think Saturday was personal?).

Can Boise State keep Avalos from leaving for another job, which might be impossible at this point?

Can the offseason turnover of players be limited, which has been an issue in the past?

Can the Broncos put together a solid recruiting class, starting with the early signing period Wednesday, without losing anymore commits?

What can be done with a roster that returns almost the entire defense?

What can Boise State do with a Top 25 start next year, and can the Broncos turn an early-season victory at Oklahoma State into another Group of 5 dream bowl? That’s what Bronco Nation wants more than anything.

Right now, based on the Hail Mary we witnessed over the past 10 games, the answer can only be yes.

All because of Harsin.

Mike Prater, editor of The Opinionator, co-hosts Idaho Sports Talk with Caves & Prater weekdays from 3-6 p.m. on KTIK 93.1 FM The Ticket and can be heard on Bronco GameNight after BSU football games on KBOI 670 AM and KTIK 93.1 FM. He can be reached at [email protected], and found @CavesandPrater (Facebook) and @MikeFPrater (Twitter).

POST-GAME NEWS & NOTES FROM BOISE STATE

  • Boise State finishes the season 11-3 after its 38-28 victory over Oregon in the Las Vegas Bowl. It is Boise State’s 10th 11-win season since joining the FBS in 1996.
  • Boise State improves to 4-0 at the Las Vegas Bowl. The Broncos are 22-13 all-time in the postseason, and 12-6 in bowl games since joining the FBS.
  • The Broncos improve to 3-0 all-time against Oregon. Previous Bronco victories over the Ducks came in 2008 (37-32 in Eugene) and 2009 (19-8 in Boise).
  • Saturday’s win over Oregon is Boise State’s fifth in six games against the Pac-12, and the Broncos improve to 12-14 overall against the Pac-12 and 12-6 since 2004.
  • Boise State is 4-1 against the Pac-12 in bowl games. Three wins have come at the Las Vegas Bowl (56-24 over Arizona State on 2011, 28-26 over Washington in 2012, and 38-28 over Oregon on Saturday).
  • Boise State made its 16th straight bowl appearance in the Las Vegas Bowl, tied with Wisconsin for the sixth-longest streak in FBS.
  • Boise State’s defense held Oregon, which entered the game eighth in the nation in rushing at 268.0 yards per game, to 47 yards on 28 carries (1.68 ypc). It was Oregon’s lowest rushing output of the season, and the only time this season that it had been held to under 100 rushing yards.
  • The defense’s four takeaways (two fumbles, two interceptions) was a season high.
  • Wilson finished with 10 catches for 221 yards and a touchdown, the second-most yards in a postseason game in Boise State history (Winky White, 264 against Nevada on Dec. 8, 1990).
  • Wilson’s performance helped him set the Boise State single-season receiving yards record with 1,511. He bests Thomas Sperbeck’s previous mark of 1,412 yards set in 2015.
  • Wilson’s day is his second-career 200-yard performance, tying him for first in Broncos history with Kipp Bedard (1979-81), White (1987-90), Tim Gilligan (2000-03). Wilson joins Gilligan (2003) as the only Broncos receivers to post two 200-yard games in a season.
  • Wolpin finished with a game-high 71 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 23 carries. Saturday marked his first-career two-touchdown game.
  • Rypien finished 21-for-38 for a season-high 362 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions.
  • Freshman safety Kekaula Kaniho recorded the first pick-six of his career, as he intercepted Justin Herbert in the second quarter and returned it 53 yards for the touchdown. It was his second defensive touchdown of the year, as he previously picked up a fumble and returned it 34 yards for a touchdown at San Diego State (Oct. 14).
  • Kaniho made two takeaways in the contest, as he forced a fumble with a sack of Herbert in the first quarter, which was recovered by sophomore linebacker Tyson Maeva, his first of the year.
  • Vander Esch had a team-high 12 tackles (10 solo), tying with Kekoa Nawahine. Vander Esch’s 10 solo tackles are tied for third-best in Las Vegas Bowl history.
  • Vander Esch finishes the season with 141 tackles, tied for the third-most in Boise State single-season history, and the most since Scott Monk finished with 140 in 1992.
  • Vander Esch led the Broncos with 3.0 tackles-for-loss in the contest, and forced his team-leading fourth fumble of the season.
  • Redshirt freshman STUD Curtis Weaver had 2.0 sacks, finishing the season with 11.0, sixth-most in Bronco single-season history.
  • Redshirt freshman safety Jordan Happle made his first-career interception with a pick of Herbert in the second quarter.
  • The Broncos held the Ducks scoreless in the first quarter, the fourth time this season that they held their opponents scoreless in the first. They went on to finish 4-0 in those games.
  • In three of Boise State’s last four bowl games, the Broncos have gone up by at least 21-0 on their opponent after taking a 24-0 lead on Oregon. In 2014, the Broncos went up 21-0 on Arizona in the Fiesta Bowl, and in the 2015 Poinsettia Bowl, the Broncos went up 21-0 on Northern Illinois.
  • In both games against Pac-12 programs this year, the Broncos scored a touchdown in their opening drive (at Washington State on Sept. 9, Saturday against Oregon).
  • WR/LS Brock Barr led the team out with The Hammer, center Mason Hampton carried the Bleed Blue flag and offensive lineman Archie Lewis carried the American flag.
  • Wolpin joined Rypien, Vander Esch and Wilson as game captains.

Courtesy of Boise State Athletics
Celebration photo of Leighton Vander Esch, Bryan Harsin and Cedrick Wilson courtesy of Las Vegas Bowl/ESPN Images

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