Boise State coach Spencer Danielson has blunt message after South Dakota scare

Danielson acknowledged the Broncos have plenty to fix after a close call against South Dakota

Boise State's Rasean Jones. | Boise State Athletics

Boise State (2-1) escaped with a 38-24 home non-conference victory over FCS South Dakota (3-1) on Saturday night.

“Obviously, we have a lot of work to do,” head coach Spencer Danielson said during his postgame press conference. “There’s a lot of stuff we need to clean up, but I still do believe that we’re building. And we have to. There’s going to be a lot of things that have to get fixed, but I do believe we are building.

“We did not play our best tonight. … We’ve got to get better.”

Here are the highlights from Boise State’s postgame press conference with Danielson and true freshman wide receiver Rasean Jones. 

Danielson on the close win

“I told our team in the locker room: We will never not celebrate a win because it is hard to win in college football. On the same hand, we have a lot to fix. 

“I am proud of our team finding a way to win, and we’re going to be able to learn a lot of lessons from this win. But we obviously have a lot of things we have to learn from and grow from. There’s a lot of points in that game where we tried to lose the game in certain situations. Uncharacteristic mistakes that come down to execution, and that’s on me, that’s on our staff, because our players are going to do what we ask of them.”

Danielson on giving up explosive plays

“It’s something that we have to execute better. It’s not good enough. … There’s some really good parts in that game of us playing really good defense, and there’s some absolutely atrocious stuff on film. We’ve got to get it fixed. We’re giving up way too many explosive plays, especially through the air right now. It has to change.

“Tonight—just speaking to tonight—we had a lack of leverage tonight at certain times. The first touchdown of the game was a lack of leverage. … We didn’t get enough pressure on the quarterback early on … and then we’ve got to be able to win our one-on-ones.” 

Danielson on injuries, including running back Sire Gaines

“We’ve been blessed with having a healthy squad. Throughout this game though, we had a bunch of guys get banged up. … There’s still a couple guys that I don’t know their status sitting here right now.

“I think (Gaines) is going to be fine, but there are probably three or four guys from the game that our trainers and doctors are going to continue to evaluate.” 

Jones on the close win

“We had a hard-fought team win. A lot of things to learn, but in the end, we won.”

Jones on the unexpectedly close game

“It was a great learning experience. I think it kind of showed us our flaws, possible things maybe we need to work on. I think we showed ourselves that we can stick it out to the end and fight through any kind of adversity or things like that.”

Jones on offensive adjustments

“I think we just made a couple adjustments on the fly there. Just kind of looked at what they were doing and adjusted our game plan based off of that. And then we put together a couple good drives there that ended up in touchdowns.”