What Boise State’s Spencer Danielson said after loss to Fresno State

‘That’s not who we are,’ Danielson said

Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson. | Boise State Athletics

Boise State lost starting quarterback Maddux Madsen to a leg injury in the opening quarter and finished with 193 yards of total offense on Saturday in a disastrous 30-7 home loss to rival Fresno State. 

The Broncos had won 16 straight games at Albertsons Stadium and 16 in a row against Mountain West opponents. 

“I take full responsibility,” Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson said after the game. “We got our tails kicked today on The Blue at home, and that’s unacceptable. We’ve got to look at it and see why that happened. … That’s not who we are.” 

Fresno State (6-3, 3-2) has won three straight games over Boise State (6-3, 4-1) as the rivals head to the Pac-12 next year. 

Here are the highlights from Danielson’s postgame comments. 

On status of Madsen, left guard Jason Steele 

“I think it’s going to be a while for both of them, but I don’t have anything yet in regards to a timeline. I think it’s going to be a while.

“Maddux is a warrior. We’re going to continue to look through it with the doctors to see how long it is, but I think it’s probably going to be a bit and we’re going to need him to be a huge leader for this team. We’ve got to continue to look at how we can put our offense in really good spots.”

On backup quarterback Max Cutforth

“We believe in Max. Thrown in a tough situation, but we’ve just got to execute better as a whole offense. It’s not just on Max, it’s on us as a whole offense and honestly, it’s on us as a whole team. Yes, injuries happen. But it’s next man up, carry the flag. There’s injuries on both sides and when your starting quarterback goes out, you’ve got to be built to still find ways to win games, and we didn’t do that tonight. That’s on me, and that’s on me and our coaching staff to get it fixed.”

On where the game got away 

“We got a field goal blocked, which was just a complete lack of technique by one of our players on the front. Just didn’t do what we practice, and that’s the stuff that hurts you, and we need everybody to do their jobs. So we get the field goal blocked, and then we have the turnover late in the second quarter which gives them really good field position. Then they kick a field goal to go up 10-7. 

“Then we get a stop to start the second half, and we can’t sustain drives. We had a couple turnovers and then we got worn down on defense, and that can’t happen. They ran the ball right down the middle of our defense throughout the second half, and we’ve got to look at that because that can’t happen. 

“It’s all three phases. It’s not because one of our players goes down or two of our players go down. All three phases did not execute the way they needed to tonight to win a football game against a good team.”