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This Day In Sports…November 25, 2006:
The most important day to date in Boise State football history, as the Broncos cap an undefeated regular season and ensure themselves a Fiesta Bowl berth with a dominating 38-7 win over Nevada, a team that had allowed just 35 points total during a five-game winning streak. They did it at Mackay Stadium, with 6,000 full-throated Boise State fans in tow to turn it into a home field for the Broncos. And there was the rare sight of visiting fans storming the field, as sombreros and bags of Tostitos (then the Fiesta Bowl sponsor) were everywhere. The fact that Boise State won its fifth straight WAC championship was almost a sidelight.
Ian Johnson, coming back from a partially-collapsed lung just two weeks earlier, rushed for 147 yards and three touchdowns on a career-high 31 carries and broke Brock Forsey’s Boise State single-season rushing record with 1,613 yards. Jared Zabransky was 20-of-27 for 299 yards and a score in the rout. He was helped by his trio of fellow seniors at wide receiver, Legedu Naanee, Jerard Rabb and Drisan James. After sour endings in bowl games the previous two seasons, the sombrero-wearing Zabransky soaked in the moment after the game.
All the while the Boise State defense was holding Nevada to 141 yards, the fewest allowed by the Broncos to an FBS team in the WAC era. The Wolf Pack’s star quarterback, Jeff Rowe, was not celebratory on Senior Day after going 6-of-15 for just 35 yards. Rowe also lost a devastating fumble deep in his own territory, one on four Nevada fumbles on the day. In their two biggest road games of the season, Boise State delivered two jaw-dropping performances—the other being a 178-yard day by Utah in a 36-3 Broncos win in September.
In the BCS standings released the following day, Boise State jumped from No. 11 to No. 8, unofficially setting up the trip to Glendale against the winner of the Big 12 championship game between Oklahoma and Nebraska (the opponent would be Oklahoma, of course). In the “regular” rankings, the Broncos cracked the top 10 for the second time in school history—No. 10 in the AP Poll and No. 9 in the Coaches Poll. Nobody thought it was premature when Johnson dumped a bag of Tostitos crumbs on coach Chris Petersen’s head after his Gatorade bath.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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