What Boise State’s Spencer Danielson said after critical road win over Utah State

Boise State overcame an 11-point third-quarter deficit on Friday in a 25-24 road victory over Utah State to wrap up the Mountain West regular season.

“That was a ballgame,” Broncos head coach Spencer Danielson said. “Our first lead was in the fourth quarter. That’s a culture win, that’s a team win.”

The Broncos (8-4, 6-2) are still alive for a spot in next week’s MWC championship game. Computer rankings will determine the fate of Boise State, New Mexico, San Diego State and potentially UNLV.

Here are the highlights from Danielson’s postgame comments.

On gritty win

“The games that we’ve been in this type of game prior, we haven’t found a way to win. And the games we’ve won, we’ve been up really big. This was a game we had to win in the fourth quarter, and our guys did that. Proud of our offense finding a way.

“We shot every bullet we had tonight. Everything we had in the gun, we launched. And we found a way to win.”

On Max Cutforth’s big game

“Max played well, man. You talk about a guy that’s stepped up and has played better each and every week. He’s a guy now that we have total trust in, and he can run our entire offense. Even with Maddux (Madsen) coming back, we have the utmost trust in Max, and he’s a competitor. He played really, really well tonight and he made his plays. I’m just proud of the young man.”

On big defensive stops

“Proud of our defense. We had a fumble late in the game, we had some things where we didn’t execute the way we needed to, and our defense — those two fourth-down stops were critical to keep the game to where it was.”

On turnover-nullifying penalties

“The game is the game. We’re never going to let the officials … that’s never going to be an excuse. But there were obviously some plays in the game, both of our interceptions got nullified because of penalties. It hurts, but we’ve got to respond and make sure we find ways to not get those called again.”

On MWC title game chances

“First off, we handled our business, and I’m proud of our guys. We went into this and I didn’t talk about other teams and what needed to happen. We needed to go out and handle business, and we did that, and we’re going to let the chips fall where they may.

“I look at our team, and yes, we had two tough losses in conference because we didn’t respond well to our quarterback being out and we didn’t play our best as a team, and that’s on me. Those are two games we’ve had to learn a lot from, and then (the other) two losses have been on the road against two really good football teams. So we’re going to let the chips fall where they may. I believe in this team, I believe they should absolutely deserve the right to go play in the championship game with how we finished the season, and I’m excited to see that happen.”