What Boise State’s Spencer Danielson said about gritty performance against New Mexico

‘Our guys battled, they didn’t flinch,’ Danielson said

Spencer Danielson | Boise State Athletics

Leading 20-17 after three quarters of play, Boise State opened the fourth with three straight touchdowns to put away visiting New Mexico on Saturday. 

The Broncos (4-2, 2-0) took down the Lobos (3-3, 0-2) at Albertsons Stadium, 41-25. 

“Our guys battled, they didn’t flinch,” Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson said after the win. “We had a much better second half than we’d shown the previous week. We were able to finish in the fourth quarter.”

Here are the highlights from Danielson’s postgame comments. 

On closing strong, showing toughness 

“(New Mexico is) one of the top fourth-quarter teams in the country. We are not, but we were better tonight. So that’s something to build on.

“Championship teams find a way to win. It’s hard. I was even watching the UNLV game a little bit before our game. They’re down in the fourth quarter and they find a way to win because they’re a really good football team. And I’m proud of our team tonight.” 

On defensive effort

“They were relentless tonight. And I’ve seen our defense really grow throughout this entire season, I really have. By no means perfect, but they’re growing, they’re consistent. That’s one of the things (New Mexico head coach Jason) Eck told me when I saw him. He was like ‘Coach, that defense is elite.’ And I respect coach Eck, I appreciated him saying that. 

“Our players, when they play in the schemes, they play disciplined, they play relentless, they play with mentality, I do believe in our defense.” 

On uneven offense performance 

“If we take away the self-inflicted negatives … obviously there’s a bunch of false starts on there, and that’s something we’re going to continue to look at, continue to have conversations about, continue to find ways to rep it better in practice, because that’s what we control. We don’t live in a mythological world. We’ve got to control it in meetings and practice and there’s something we’re missing, because we’ve got great kids. 

“And we’ve got to make sure we win first down. You see the drives that we did sputter offensively, we didn’t win first down. We’ve got to be more efficient there. But I’m proud of our offense finding a way.”

On New Mexico kick return touchdown

“That kickoff to the house can’t happen. What happened is the guys on there assumed we were kicking it out. And even though we talk about as coaches ‘Don’t assume, run through the end zone,’ some of our players assumed. We’ve got to fix that, and we’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen.”