What Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson said ahead of fall camp

‘What we did last year is not good enough,’ Danielson said

Spencer Danielson | Boise State Athletics

Boise State will hold its first practice of fall camp this week, and head coach Spencer Danielson held his annual pre-camp press conference on Monday. 

The Broncos are coming off a 9-5 season and the program’s third straight Mountain West championship. In July, Boise State and four other MWC programs all exited the conference for the Pac-12. 

“There’s no complacency in this room,” Danielson said on Monday. “We’ve won three straight conference championships, we’ve done a lot of good things. But we also have a lot of things we have to learn and grow from, and we have to continue to scale forward. 

“What we did last year is not good enough. What we did in practice was not good enough. What we did in recruiting is not (good enough). You have to always scale, or you’re going to die. That’s the reality of business, and that’s the reality of college football.”

Boise State’s players will report to camp on Tuesday with the first official practice scheduled for Wednesday. 

Here are the highlights of Danielson’s pre-camp press conference. 

On injury updates

“Injury-wise, we’re in a good place. (True freshman offensive tackle) Kole Cronin got hurt in spring ball … he’s going to be out for a while, so he won’t be available for practice in fall camp. (Wide receiver) Ben Ford is getting close, he’s getting close. He’s able to do some things, there’s still some stuff through his recovery … he’s going to practice, but he’s not going to be practicing completely to start fall camp. We’ll see kind of how that shakes down.

“Other than that, our guys are in a good place injury-wise. Our guys should be out there ready to roll.” 

On preparing for Week 1 against Oregon

“After our second scrimmage, that’s when fall camp is officially over. We’ll hike Table Rock; that’s a stamp on fall camp, and then we go into bonus week. That time is when we’ll introduce Oregon, their schematics.”

On live tackling during camp

“We’re going to continue to do that. … We’ve got to tackle better. We were one of the worst tackling teams in the country last year, can’t happen. On the flip side, we’ve got to be able to break tackles. We don’t have the luxury of playing maybe a game where you can kind of ease into it. We have to be our best from kickoff Sept. 5, and I love that.”

On new-look wide receiver, defensive back rooms

“I’ve been asked a lot about the receiver group and our defensive backs because there’s a lot of new faces, and honestly a lot of untested faces in those rooms. But I’m excited about both those rooms.”