Boise State is moving on from the disappointment of Saturday’s 34-27 loss to No. 2 Oregon, but Spencer Danielson isn’t letting anybody pretend it was anything other than a missed opportunity.
After grading the film and revisiting the game with his team, the Broncos head coach kept coming back to the same theme Monday: there was plenty to like, but the result still fell short of the standard.
“Really, really, really proud of how our players battled and fought. Proud of how our tackling has improved, proud of how we’ve become a more disciplined team.
“There’s a lot of really good stuff on film, but we met with our team earlier and we called it tell the truth Monday, and it’s never going to be OK to not win that football game, though. … At Boise State, there’s no moral victories. We’re never going to be OK with not finding a way to win that game.”
The Broncos are 0-1 overall and 0-0 in the Pac-12, and they’ll try to get into the win column Saturday when they host Memphis at Albertsons Stadium. Kickoff is set for 4 p.m. Mountain Time.
Danielson’s Monday session also included a candid admission about a situation he said Boise State handled the wrong way.
“Obviously a situation we completely messed up, and I take full responsibility for it. Going into the game, we knew we had a plan to be aggressive-especially knowing we wouldn’t get the ball (to start) the second half-but we didn’t handle that situation right, and we had a good talk as a staff this morning.
A lot of things went into it, from field position to how many timeouts they had, but it was wrong. It was wrong.
We didn’t do a good job with it, and we’ve got to learn going forward.”
He also pointed to the numbers that jumped off the film. Boise State managed six explosive plays on offense, while Oregon hit nine explosive plays against the Broncos’ defense. Danielson said those nine plays totaled 330 yards.
“We had six explosive plays as an offense. We have to find a way to be more explosive.
We gave up nine explosive plays as a defense, which is way too much. Those nine plays were 330 yards … can’t happen.
Got to find a way to make sure that doesn’t happen going forward. It’s just not OK.
Not OK that it happened on Saturday, it doesn’t matter who we’re playing, we’ve got to find a way to be better.”
The next challenge is a Memphis team that arrives unbeaten at 2-0, and Danielson made it clear Boise State is not taking the matchup lightly. He described the Tigers as one of the toughest opponents the Broncos will see all season and said first-year head coach Charles Huff has already stamped his identity on the program.
“We’re 0-1. That’s the reality, that’s not an opinion.
We’re 0-1 and we’re playing an undefeated Memphis team that’s going to be one of the best teams we play all season. Got a ton of respect for (first-year head coach Charles Huff) and what he’s done obviously this year at Memphis, but what he’s even done at Southern Miss, what he did at Marshall.
I mean, he’s won everywhere he’s been and there’s an edge and mentality to the teams he coaches that you can see on film. And I think it’s a big testament to see the amount of Southern Miss players that followed him to Memphis because they believe in him and who he is.
“He’s one of the best coaches in the profession, and we know we’re going to get a really motivated, really talented, really well-coached Memphis team that’s undefeated for a reason.”
In Other News...
Makhi Hughes Just Delivered The Oregon Reminder Fans Didn't Want
Makhi Hughes never found much room to make an imprint during his lone season in Eugene, where Oregons ground game wound up being spread around and his own production stayed limited before he decided to move on. The former Tulane back arrived with some intrigue, but by the end of the year he was looking for a fresh start and a better fit elsewhere.
He found both back with Willie Fritz at Houston, and the debut was a sharp reminder of what the Ducks had once hoped to get. Hughes opened his Cougars tenure with 98 rushing yards and a touchdown, a useful first chapter for him and an unwelcome one for Oregon fans who were hoping his stop in Eugene would have gone differently. [Read more 🡒]
Dante Moores Heisman Stock Just Sent Oregon Fans A Strange Message
Dante Moore opened the season with the kind of performance Oregon fans wanted to see, piling up a career-high passing game and steering the Ducks to a close win over Boise State. Even so, the Heisman market did not react the way his box score might have suggested. While Miami quarterback Darian Mensah surged to the front of the race and wide receiver Malachi Toney also saw his stock rise after Week 1, Moores odds actually slipped.
For Oregon, that creates a strange sort of early read on a quarterback who did his part in a tight opener. Moore spoke after the game about the value of adversity, which fits the reality of a season that is only just beginning and already asking him to manage expectations as much as defenses. The Ducks got the result they needed, but the Heisman conversation around their quarterback suddenly looks a little less straightforward than the performance itself. [Read more 🡒]
Oregon Film Review Raises A Bigger Question About The Ducks O-Line
A new round of film review around Oregons latest game puts the offensive line under a brighter spotlight, with the focus shifting from simple grading to the handful of plays that helped decide how the day unfolded. The recap leans into selected clips and the kind of small roster details that often get lost in a box score, including possession counts, lineup rotations and the specific way the Ducks mixed and matched up front as the game moved along.
One of the more notable wrinkles was the way the guard spots changed during the contest, a sign that the staff may have been searching for the right combination or managing something minor along the interior. For a line that is usually judged by stability as much as performance, those in-game adjustments naturally raise a bigger question about how settled Oregon really is there, and whether the answers are as clear as the rest of the offense would like them to be. [Read more 🡒]