Colorado Springs- I refused to believe that Boise State had an issue winning in Falcon Stadium. An issue with winning against Air Force, yes, but not a road game. Boise State hasn’t had an issue like that since, well like, never. So, the fact that they have gone 0-2 in their only 2 trips didn’t faze me. It wasn’t a trend or a streak. It was a repeat. Never mind that Air Force beat Boise State in Albertsons Stadium in 2015 to make it 3 of the last 4 games that the Broncos lost to Air Force. The bigger issue to me was Boise St soundly beat Air Force last year to stop the streak and Air Force didn’t have a great team this season. Air Force entered the game 3-4 overall and 1-3 in the conference. They had instability in their offensive backfield and had been torched through the air on defense.

I think I had that wrong. Boise State grinded out a 48-38 win. The first thing Bryan Harsin announced to the media after the game was that despite not believing in awarding game balls and special trophies, he broke tradition. He gave the 2018 Broncos the team ball for winning in Colorado Springs. He said that’s what they came for , he was excited and and proud of his team. At this moment, Harsin usually talks about going back to work and how excited he is to work on the next opponent and fix the mistakes of the game just completed.

Not this time. He said they were going to enjoy this win and while he knows they have work to do, they got it done. Brett Rypien, Alexander Mattison, Jabril Frazier and John Hightower all mentioned that being the first team to win here was special and important. Sounds like the hype around never winning here worked. The coaches had used the ghost of the Fiesta Bowl team and blowing a shot at the Mountain division title in 2016 to motivate the team. It worked. Be the first at something. Leave a legacy. It had a ring to it and maybe it’s the first step to doing something else that would be a first. Winning outright back to back conference titles. No Mountain West team has done it and it was last done in the WAC in 2008-9. I can buy into that.

Jeff Caves

@jeffcaves on twitter