Bohdie Ing's career-long 43-yard field goal tied the game at 24 with 10:33 left, and the FCS team that kicked it had every right to be there. Then Dylan Riley scored on a 2-yard run with 6:25 to go and broke an 83-yard touchdown run with 1:33 left, and Travis Anderson picked off Austyn Modrzewski to end it. Boise State beat South Dakota 38-24 at home as a 24.5-point favorite, after trailing 7-0 and again 14-7 early in the second quarter. The Coyotes came in 3-0 and ranked No. 10 in the FCS, so this was no plodding cupcake, but a two-touchdown final margin built almost entirely inside the last seven minutes is not the same thing as control.
The box score will tell you otherwise. Boise State ran 79 plays for 533 yards, 325 of them on the ground, and held the ball 39:26 to South Dakota's 20:34. Spencer Danielson himself explained the offense's shape. He said the Broncos knew South Dakota was "one of the best defenses in regard to not giving up explosive plays" and "elite at making teams be committed to five yards, six yards, eight yards," and Boise State's five scoring drives before Riley's 83-yarder each averaged more than five minutes. So the grinding, low-chunk profile was a plan, not a breakdown. What was a breakdown was two failed fourth downs, which Danielson called out directly, "we still had two fourth downs that we didn't get. There's some other things, there's some drives that sputtered that we need to get fixed."
The two problems that travel
The first is the start. This was the second straight week Boise State fell behind early, 17-3 to Memphis before answering with two touchdowns in the final 4:42 of the first half and all 21 second-half points, then 7-0 and 14-7 to an FCS underdog. Both ended in wins, and the Memphis comeback was genuinely complementary football, a fourth-down touchdown pass, an interception pressured by Jayden Virgin-Morgan and Lopez Sanusi, Riley's 71-yard run, Sire Gaines' go-ahead score, Cam Bates' punt-return touchdown, a 98-yard drive. That is a real ability. It is also an expensive one to keep needing.
The second is the pass defense, and it is the more alarming of the two because Danielson has already diagnosed it. Modrzewski, a redshirt freshman, completed 12 of 27 for 243 yards and three touchdowns, with completions of 29, 40, 46 and 59 yards accounting for 174 of that total. Boise State entered the game last nationally in pass defense. Anderson's two interceptions and a 36-yard rushing allowance, the stingiest run-defense number since October 2024, were the counterweight, and they were real. But the front got home twice against an FCS offensive line, and Danielson named the causes without being asked to soften them. There were too many explosive plays through the air, leverage problems on the opening touchdown, and not enough early pressure on the quarterback. "A lot of the plays that are on my mind that didn't go our way was a lack of execution," he said. "So we did not play our best tonight."
Broc Lowry, and the pass rush that hasn't arrived
Boise State plays at Western Michigan on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. Mountain time on ESPN2, the first meeting ever between the programs. The Broncos of Kalamazoo return Broc Lowry, the 2025 MAC Offensive Player of the Year, who threw for 1,803 yards and nine touchdowns and added a program-record 963 rushing yards and 14 rushing touchdowns from the quarterback spot. Boise State managed two sacks and gave up four 29-plus-yard completions last week, and Lowry threatens on both counts, the rush that doesn't arrive becomes a scramble first down, and the coverage bust that an FCS receiver turned into 59 yards becomes the same thing against a better one.
Danielson is not pretending otherwise. Of Western Michigan's Week 1 loss at Michigan he said, "They absolutely beat Michigan, at Michigan. And that's not hype, that is what happened," and he flatly called them "an undefeated football team. Period, end of story." Coaches praise opponents every week. Coaches do not usually tell you the opponent won a game the scoreboard says they lost.
Boise State's health does not help. Danielson said the staff was still evaluating Gaines (wrist and hand; he worked out Monday, with Juelz Goff and Harry Stewart III behind him), right guard Roger Carreon, Virgin-Morgan with an upper-body injury suffered on a fourth-quarter sack, and safety Derek Ganter Jr., who missed South Dakota and remains banged up with Kyle Hall the primary fill-in. Gaines had already left the South Dakota game late favoring his right arm; Danielson said then he expected him to be fine but that three or four players would need further evaluation. Losing the edge anchor and a starting safety in the same week, for a defense whose problem is pressure and leverage, is the version of this that gets ugly.
The one road sample Boise State has is Oregon, a final possession from its own 13 with 2:24 left, one first down, then a failed fourth-and-10. Danielson rejected the moral victory afterward and took responsibility for the aggressive end-of-half call that preceded Oregon's late touchdown. That team competed on the road. Waldo Stadium asks a narrower question, not whether Boise State can hang with a top-two team, but whether it can start on time somewhere that isn't the blue turf.
What to watch, and what it's worth
The model makes this close to a coin flip, Boise State at 50.5 percent. That is the honest read on a game the betting market calls a touchdown. The swing is real but not season-defining, a win puts the Broncos at 59.4 percent to reach the Pac-12 title game and 7 percent to make the Playoff; a loss drops those to 53.9 percent and 2.3 percent. The conference race survives a stumble here. The margin for error afterward does not improve much, with Fresno State and Washington State road trips still on the calendar.
So watch the first 15 minutes, and watch third-and-6. If Boise State scores first and the front makes Lowry throw from a muddy pocket, the fourth quarter won't have to bail anyone out again. If it's 14-3 Western Michigan at the end of one and Lowry has a 40-yard completion, you've seen this movie twice already, and the third showing is on the road against a team that doesn't beat itself.
Full odds and the week's full picture live in the interactive guide, and the methodology explains how the simulation gets there.