Fresno State beats Boise State 28-16 for Mountain West title

Brian Losness-USA TODAY Sports
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BOISE, Idaho – When Fresno State’s Jake Haener was presented with his biggest challenge of the season – taking down perennial conference power Boise State – coach Jeff Tedford long knew his quarterback would be up for the challenge.

Haener, who didn’t play against Boise State when the two teams met earlier in the season due to an ankle injury, threw for 184 yards and a touchdown to lead Fresno State to a 28-16 victory over the Broncos on Saturday in the Mountain West Conference championship game.

Fresno State (9-4) overcame a 1-4 start to the season and a rash of injuries to win its final eight games, claiming the program’s third Mountain West crown.

“We’ve come a long way since the first part of the year when a lot of people didn’t believe in us,” Fresno State coach Jeff Tedford said. “But the staff did and the kids did. . It’s nice to see them happy.”

Boise State (9-4), which won 40-20 in the regular-season match-up between the teams, fell to 3-3 in Mountain West title games.

“We have to tip our hat to (Fresno State),” Boise State coach Andy Avalos said. “We obviously didn’t accomplish what we set out to do today, but we accomplished a lot of things this year. . And we do get one more opportunity in a bowl game.”

But it was Haener who delivered in the moments when Fresno State needed him most, which didn’t come as a surprise to Tedford.

The pair go all the way back to when Haener was 9 years old and looking for some help as a budding quarterback. A mutual friend connected him to Tedford and a long-lasting relationship was born.

“We worked together a little bit and I gave Jake a couple of goals, and he was so dedicated to those goals,” Tedford said. “I told him he had heavy feet and he needed to jump rope five hundred times without missing. Eight months later, I got a call from him, and he said, `I did it, I did it.”‘

Tedford, who recruited Haener out of high school, had to recruit him again when he entered the transfer portal after the coaching change at the end of last season and considered leaving Fresno State. But Tedford won him back.

“I wanted to be able to come back and play with this great group,” Haener said of his decision to stick it out at Fresno State for his senior season. “Once I got this guy (Tedford) on the other side of the phone, I knew I wanted to be here and play with this group. It’s been awesome and the adversity we’ve faced together has been one of the biggest challenges in my life. And it’s been awesome.”

Haener took full advantage of every miscue by the Broncos. The game’s offensive MVP was five of eight on third downs and led two key scoring drives in the fourth quarter.

“This is the golden boy of the conference and . to come up here against one of our biggest rivals in the conference, it definitely means more,” Haener said.

Boise State controlled the game early but struggled to find the end zone, clinging to a 3-0 lead late in the first half. But that all changed when Fresno State scored two touchdowns in a span of 2:36 right before halftime.

Nikko Remigio‘s electric 70-yard punt return snaking back and forth across the field sparked Fresno State. On the ensuing possession, defensive player of the game Cameron Lockridge intercepted the first of two passes, returning it 25 yards to the Broncos’ 17-yard line. Three plays later, Jordan Mims scored on a 2-yard run to put the Bulldogs up 14-3. They never relinquished the lead.

After Boise State edged within 14-9 in the third quarter, Fresno State took advantage of a roughing the punter penalty on fourth-and-15 to breathe new life into the drive. Haener finished with a 22-yard scoring strike to Zane Pope. He tacked on another scoring drive on the next possession to put the game out of reach.

Jordan Mims rushed for 83 yards and a pair of scores for Fresno State.

Boise State’s Taylen Green was 17-of-38 passing for 175 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions.

THE TAKEAWAY

Boise State: While Broncos quarterback Green made his initial splash on the team with his legs, it’s his arm that turned the season around. However, Green was often off-target against Fresno State.

Fresno State: The Bulldogs’ 10-3 campaign a year ago served as a springboard for sustained success in 2022. However, Fresno State coach Jeff Tedford, who has now won two Mountain West titles, will have his work cut out for him in 2023 as his talented team is losing eight seniors on offense and five more on defense. If he chooses to utilize the transfer portal, he could shore up the team’s short-term needs and keep Fresno State in contention for another conference title.

UP NEXT

Boise State: The Broncos await bowl-game designation.

Fresno State: The Bulldogs will face the fifth-place team from the PAC-12 in the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl on Dec. 17.

Boise State QB Hank Bachmeier set to hit transfer portal

Ivan Pierre Aguirre-USA TODAY Sports
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BOISE, Idaho — Boise State quarterback Hank Bachmeier intends to transfer with the Broncos off to a disappointing 2-2 start.

A spokesman for Boise State confirmed Tuesday that Bachmeier has filed paperwork to initiate the process of transferring. Bachmeier told ESPN he wants to find a situation that will allow him to win games and prepare for the NFL.

Bachmeier will have two years of eligibility remaining.

Boise State coach Andy Avalos said Tuesday that Taylen Green will be the starting quarterback for Friday’s game against San Diego State.

Bachmeier has played in 29 career games at Boise State. His best season was last year, when he threw for 3,079 yards and 20 touchdowns.

Bachmeier has started all four games this season for the Broncos, but he had seen some of his playing time taken by Green. Bachmeier was just 13 of 34 passing for 93 yards and a touchdown in the Broncos’ loss to UTEP last Friday.

A day later, Boise State offensive coordinator Tim Plough was fired and replaced for the rest of the season by former Boise State and NFL head coach Dirk Koetter.

Arizona Bowl off, Boise State pulls out with COVID-19 issues

Brian Losness-USA TODAY Sports
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The Arizona Bowl was canceled after Boise State pulled out and shut down all team activities due to COVID-19 issues within the program.

The Broncos were scheduled to play Central Michigan at Arizona Stadium but instead joined numerous college basketball programs that have been hit with coronavirus issues coming out of the Christmas break.

“We feel for the young men in our program who were very much looking forward to closing out their season, and for some, their football careers,” Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey said Monday in a statement. “I would personally like to thank Kym Adair and her team at the Arizona Bowl for putting together a first-class student-athlete and fan experience that we are extremely disappointed to miss.”

Barstool Sports, the sponsor of the Arizona Bowl, tweeted that it made the “difficult decision” to cancel the game, which would have been streamed on its platforms. It becomes the fourth bowl canceled this season after the Hawaii, Fenway and Military bowls.

Central Michigan will instead play Washington State in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, replacing Miami in a game that will be broadcast on CBS.

College basketball also will have a notably lighter schedule this week after the pandemic caused numerous games to get canceled or postponed.

The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East announced Monday they were scrapping three and four games, respectively, scheduled to take place over the next several days.

That included No. 2 Duke’s game Wednesday night at Clemson. Other ACC matchups that won’t take place as scheduled Wednesday include Florida State at Boston College and Virginia Tech at North Carolina. The Georgia Tech-Syracuse game scheduled for Wednesday was postponed earlier.

UConn’s game against No. 23 Xavier scheduled for Tuesday was scrapped because of COVID-19 issues involving the Huskies.

Illinois also had its game on Wednesday against Florida A&M wiped out because of positive tests within the Illini’s program.

The Big East cited COVID-19 issues within the Georgetown and St. John’s programs in canceling their game scheduled for Saturday. Marquette’s game at St. John’s on Wednesday and Xavier’s Jan. 4 game at Georgetown also have been called off.

Big East officials said they would attempt to reschedule the games in accordance with the conference’s game cancellation policy.

Most major college conferences, including the Big East, Atlantic Coast Conference, Southeastern Conference, Big 12 and Pac-12, have changed their policies recently to say that games that can’t be played because of COVID-19 will be rescheduled – and if they can’t be rescheduled, they’ll be considered a no contest.

The Big Ten said last week it is re-evaluating its forfeiture policy from August, which gives a sick team a loss if they cancel against a healthy team; if both teams have COVID-19 issues and the game can’t be rescheduled, it’s a no contest.

Since Dec. 15, more than 120 men’s college basketball games and 100 women’s games have been canceled or postponed.

The number of people a men’s or women’s basketball team needs for a game ranges from than six scholarship players and a coach in the Big 12 to a minimum of seven in the ACC, Pac-12 and Big East. The SEC requires teams to play if they have seven, while an ACC team can choose not to play even if they have the minimum number of players, though it would be a forfeit.

It wasn’t just on the men’s side that the Big East had to cancel games. Four women’s games were wiped out over the next week as well, with Providence losing its contests at Xavier and Butler. Georgetown lost games against St. John’s and Seton Hall.

Other women’s games canceled this week include No. 21 Iowa’s scheduled Thursday game at Penn State, which was called off due to positive COVID-19 tests within Penn State’s program. Fourth-ranked Arizona also saw both its games scheduled for this weekend get wiped out because of COVID-19 issues at Southern Cal and UCLA.

Arizona had been dealing with its own coronavirus problems and hasn’t played since Dec. 17.

No. 2 Stanford and sixth-ranked Maryland also had games canceled this week, with the Cardinal’s contest on Friday against Washington postponed and the Terrapins’ game at Illinois on Thursday wiped out.