Boise State’s path back into the national picture may come down to something far less glamorous than scheme or star power: staying on the field.
That’s the question at the center of Bronco Nation News’ countdown to camp, and it sits at No. 22 on the list of biggest issues facing the Broncos this fall. Last season, Boise State was hit hard enough by injuries that depth stopped being a talking point and became a weekly survival test.
The numbers tell the story. Of the 22 primary starters from last season, 11 missed at least one game because of injury.
Maddux Madsen, the starting quarterback, was the biggest blow, missing nearly four games. Boise State went 2-2 during that stretch and barely held onto its place in the Mountain West Conference Championship game.
The injury hits kept coming. Ben Ford, Boise State’s highest graded receiver per PFF, was lost for the season after missing seven games.
Tight end Matt Lauter sat out the Notre Dame game and, after returning, didn’t look as explosive the rest of the year. Starting nickel Jaden Mickey also missed that game against his former team.
Just how rough was it? ESPN’s Bill Connelly built a lineup consistency metric to measure how much turnover teams dealt with, and Boise State checked in at 121st - the lowest mark of any team that won at least nine games last season. Connelly’s metric doesn’t account for lineup changes, so teams that shuffle starters for other reasons can land near the bottom too, but the Broncos still likely finished in the bottom 10 of the FBS in injury luck.
With even average health, Boise State’s season probably looks a lot different. Instead of 9-5, it may have been closer to 11-3. And with an 11-2 Tulane team making the CFP, the Broncos likely would have been part of that conversation too.
So how do they avoid going through that again?
A big part of the answer is a deeper rotation, especially on defense. Notre Dame, which finished 12th in Connelly’s continuity metric, had 22 players log at least 200 defensive snaps. Boise State had just 17, even though it played two more games than the Irish.
That lack of rotation showed up most in the secondary, where four starters missed time with injuries. Zion Washington, Jaden Mickey, and Ty Benefield were regularly on the field for more than 90% of the team’s snaps in games, and Jeremiah Earby’s 783 snaps were second most on the defense, behind only Benefield.
There’s always a trade-off when you pull your best players off the field to rest them. But the idea is simple: more bodies, less wear, better odds of surviving the grind. And after last season, Boise State knows exactly how valuable that can be.
Football doesn’t always reward the best team. Sometimes it rewards the healthiest one.
Boise State won a third straight conference championship anyway, despite some of the worst injury luck in the country. That made for a strong result in what was labeled a down year.
But if the Broncos want another run at the CFP in 2026, they’ll need the injury luck to swing their way.
In Other News...
Boise State Faces One Massive Question In Its New PAC-12 Home
Boise States move into the rebuilt PAC-12 is official, and after 15 seasons in the Mountain West, the Broncos are stepping into a league that suddenly looks like a real force in the Group of Six race. The new PAC-12 now has eight football members, with five of them coming from the Mountain West, and the early read from SP+ is that the conference has more overall strength and better returning production than either the American Athletic Conference or the league Boise State just left behind.
The bigger question for the Broncos is how quickly that new home translates into a path back to the top of the national conversation. Boise State, Colorado State and Oregon State all look like teams that could take a step forward in preseason projections, and the conferences floor appears higher than most of its peers, with no team buried near the bottom nationally. Even so, the real test for Boise State is whether joining a more competitive, better-regarded league helps it separate from the pack or simply puts it in a deeper race for the same spotlight. [Read more 🡒]
Boise State Officially Enters The Pac-12 In A Program Defining Moment
Boise States long-anticipated leap into the Pac-12 became official Wednesday, a program-defining step that gives the Broncos a new stage and a different level of weekly competition. The university marked the moment with a launch party at Albertsons Stadium, where donors, alumni, former student-athletes, university leaders and fans gathered to take in a move that has been years in the making.
Athletic director Jeramiah Dickey framed the switch as a direct match with Boise States identity and long-term vision, one tied to recruiting, exposure and the kind of reach the school has been chasing. It also opens the door to new rivalries and a clearer path to Pac-12 championship races, even if the full shape of that future will take some time to unfold. [Read more 🡒]