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Boise State Football Mid Season Report
Resetting The Expectations For Boise State At The Mid Season Mark
Contact/Follow @erik_smiley54 & @MWCwire
How will Boise State finish?
Boise State fans and experts across college football came into this season with high expectations for Boise State. Those high hopes were in no way misguided as the Broncos came into the season returning a majority of last years starters to have the talent and experience to have a special season.
At the midpoint of the season, those expectations have come crashing down. Long gone is the talk of undefeated and NY6 bowls but there is still plenty of talk of Mountain Division Champ, Mountain West Championship game, and a bowl game.
The biggest disappointment at this stage of the season would have to be the play of the offensive line. Returning three experienced starters from last year should have allowed the offensive line to adjust better. When going against weak competition they have shown that they can open up the running game and protect Brett Rypien but struggled to get the run game going against faster defenses like Oklahoma State and tougher defensive fronts like Wyoming and San Diego State.
At this point in the season, some of the offensive numbers are still skewed by the record-setting day against UConn. The rushing attack game has struggled over the rest of the season averaging only 84.25 yards a game, which would rank them 11th in the conference.
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The offense is not all doom and gloom this season though. While being forced to be one dimensional, Brett Rypien has stepped up and, in most cases, tore apart opposing defenses. In almost every game the season Rypien has surpassed some type of career milestone.
Against Troy he surpassed 10,000 passing yards, against UConn he led the Broncos to the most yards of total offense in Boise State history, against Oklahoma State it was the most career games with over 300 passing yards, and against Wyoming Brett Cleared 11,000 career passing yards. As the pre-season Mountain West Offensive Player of the year, he has definitely played up to expectation.
Coming into the year we knew that Boise State’s defense was going to be good. It is rather surprising just how good they have been. With the injuries on this side of the ball, the Broncos are still in the top 4 in the Mountain West in 9 different categories. The “Kings of Chaos have continued to live up to their name averaging almost 3 sacks per game, which ranks 5th nationally.