Presented by THE JAMES.
This Day In Sports…December 26, 2018:
The most bizarre finish to a football game in Boise State history. The First Responder Bowl was historic for the Broncos and Boston College—for all the wrong reasons. In fact, according to the bowl records, it never even happened, as the game was cancelled with 5:08 left in the first quarter. The Eagles were leading 7-0 when a series of severe lightning storms began over the old Cotton Bowl stadium in Dallas. The Broncos defense had just gotten a stop, and the offense was set to go at its own 14-yard line. Then the wait began.
The decision to scrap the game and declare it a “no contest” was made after a delay of an hour and 21 minutes. When it was cancelled, the first bowl game ever to suffer that fate, a malaise set in for fans of both teams. And imagine how players felt, especially the seniors. At first, there was anger. Couldn’t they have waited it out longer than an hour and 21 minutes?
But it became evident that the lightning had three or four more hours to go, and Boise State coach Bryan Harsin and Boston College coach Steve Addazio were concerned about the risk of injury after shutting their players down for that length of time and starting them back up again. The only other college football postseason event ever to be cancelled was a special Hawaii-San Jose State charity game in 1941 due to Pearl Harbor.
It was a sudden and shocking way for quarterback Brett Rypien and 15 other seniors to end their Boise State careers. One of the lasting images of this bizarre day was a Twitter-posted photo of Rypien hugging his family after leaving the locker room. Rypien was still in uniform—and probably didn’t want to take it off. A sterling and memorable four-year career ended hanging in mid-air.
Rypien was 3-of-6 for 39 yards when the game was called, but since it was “no contest,” the stats don’t count. Rypien’s 13,581 career passing yards, the most in Mountain West history, would have to do. Fifteen other Bronco seniors experienced the same unreal emotions, including Tyler Horton, Jabril Frazier, Sean Modster and A.J. Richardson. They were all numb.
It was also the final Boise State game for Alexander Mattison, a junior who would be selected in the third round of the 2019 NFL Draft by the Minnesota Vikings. Mattison rushed for 2,829 yards and 33 touchdowns during his three-year Broncos career, with the last 200 coming in a Mountain West championship game overtime loss to Fresno State. The title sponsor of the First Responder Bowl was ServPro, whose slogan could not have been more appropriate: “Like it never even happened.”
(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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