Boise State deploys puzzling offensive strategy in San Diego State loss

Broncos attempted just nine passes before final desperation drive

Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson | Boise State Athletics

Despite having two weeks to prepare for a matchup against Mountain West co-leader San Diego State, Boise State’s offense was largely lifeless without starting quarterback Maddux Madsen. 

The Broncos (6-4, 4-2) deployed a vanilla, run-heavy approach on a soggy field at Snapdragon Stadium. The Aztecs (8-2, 5-1) had no fear of a Boise State passing attack featuring backup quarterback Max Cutforth and put all their effort into stopping the run.

San Diego State limited the Broncos to four yards per carry (41 attempts, 164 yards) on Saturday en route to a 17-7 victory in the rain. 

Boise State, which has suffered back-to-back MWC losses for the first time since 2021, finished with 268 total yards of offense. Seventy-two of the yards came on the Broncos’ final desperation drive when Cutforth looked solid with completions on 5 of 9 attempts. 

It was the fourth time Boise State has been limited to exactly seven points this season. The Broncos are 0-4 in those games. 

After Saturday’s loss, Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson defended first-year offensive coordinator Nate Potter. 

“I have absolute confidence in Nate Potter,” Danielson said. “Absolute confidence in him, absolute confidence in our offensive staff. But obviously it’s not good enough right now, I’m not running from that … but I don’t lose the trust in our coaches. We’ve got to look at it, though.

“We’ve got to see what are we missing, what are we teaching, why are we not able to create more explosive plays? And we weren’t, and I have to see why we didn’t see some of those things and what maybe scared us away from them.”

The Broncos gained two first downs on their first four drives, all of which resulted in an Oscar Doyle punt. From the 10:48 mark of the second quarter to the 2:13 mark of the third, Boise State called 20 consecutive rushing plays. 

When the Broncos got the ball back trailing 17-7 with 3:37 remaining, Cutforth was just 7 of 9 passing for 32 yards. He finished 12 of 18 for 104 yards with no touchdowns or turnovers in his first career start.  

Danielson said he felt good about the offensive game plan heading into Saturday’s matchup with the MWC’s top-ranked defense. 

“We knew going in this was going to be an absolute slug-fest; we needed to run the football,” Danielson said. “I mean, San Diego State threw for (17 yards) and beat us 17-7. So we knew going in with those elements, throwing the football is tough. Obviously we had to later in the game, it got a little bit drier later in the game so we could. But we’ve got to look at it. We’ve got to be more explosive on offense, we’ve got to score more points.”

Danielson said the Broncos had some offensive wrinkles that didn’t get used in a close game. 

Boise State trailed 14-7 at halftime and surrendered a 47-yard Gabriel Plascencia field goal with 10:51 remaining.

“We had a couple different options in the game. We just didn’t get to them, and we’ll look at it and see some things that we missed,” Danielson said. “We had some things going into the game that we didn’t use. Gotta see kind of why. But we’ve got to execute better.”

Madsen suffered an unspecified lower leg injury during Boise State’s 30-7 home loss to Fresno State on Nov. 1. Danielson said he expected Madsen to return this season. 

The Broncos were also without leading receiver Chris Marshall and starting left guard Jason Steele against the Aztecs. 

Boise State has a home game against Colorado State (2-8, 1-5) next week before closing the regular season at Utah State (5-5, 3-3) on Black Friday.