The No. 10 Boise State Broncos had a quite simple scenario on Friday evening within the Mountain West championship sport in opposition to No. 20 UNLV.
Win and you’re in.
Simply maintain enterprise, at residence, and punch your ticket to the 2024 Faculty Soccer Playoff.
The Broncos did precisely that with a 21-7 win that not solely provides them the convention title, may very seemingly give them a bye week into the quarterfinals. They’ll get the bye week if they’re one of many 4 highest-ranked convention champions when the 12-team subject is revealed on Sunday. On condition that they entered Friday’s sport already in that place, it appears seemingly they are going to stay there.
Boise State has principally dominated its opponents this season, with 9 of its 12 wins coming by double-digits, together with Friday’s convention title win over UNLV.
The massive criticism of Boise State’s resume would be the high quality of competitors and the very fact Friday’s sport is its solely win over a ranked opponent.
The counter to that’s that its solely different sport in opposition to a ranked crew was a Week 2 sport at Oregon. Whereas Boise State did lose on the highway, it was solely a three-point sport and got here all the way down to Oregon profitable on a subject purpose as time expired.
On condition that Oregon is the top-ranked crew within the nation (and has been for many of the season) and that it was a real highway sport in one of many nation’s hardest stadiums, that ought to be thought of a formidable exhibiting.
The Broncos are being carried into the playoffs by celebrity operating again — and Heisman hopeful — Ashton Jeanty who had one other dominant efficiency on Friday.
He completed the sport with 209 yards on 32 carries, alongside along with his twenty ninth complete landing of the season on a spectacular 75-yard run simply earlier than halftime. It’s his sixth 200-yard dashing sport of the season.
That efficiency provides him 2,497 dashing yards on the season, and leaves him simply 131 yards behind Barry Sanders for the single-season file in faculty soccer historical past. Jeanty will get at the least another sport to attempt to high that.
Whereas he may have completed so in additional video games than Sanders performed, it mustn’t take away from the brilliance of his season.