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Ah the wonders of winning a big-time football game in November.
As we all found out on Friday the Broncos (8-2, 5-1 MWC) are kind of good at football. At least good enough to win a much-hyped game at home with the help of 33,118 fans. Which is good considering the Broncos were 0-4 in the previous attempts at beating a ranked team in November.
Because of the recent surge by the Broncos, the polls have started to forgive the Boise State for their two slip-ups earlier in the year.
While these polls are glorified popularity contests, that don’t have much of a bearing on the CFP rankings (the ones that dictate NY6 games), they at least can give a team momentum going to into the final stretch of games. They can give us some direction as to what the outside CFB world thinks of the Broncos.
And they think Boise State is pretty ok!
The coaches poll has the Broncos placed at no. 24.
The AP poll is slightly better at no. 23.
As one can guess, the other fallout to the game from Friday is that the Fresno State Bulldogs (8-2, 5-1 MWC) made a complete tumble out of both polls. Which is slightly unfair given the fact that it was a tightly contested game, away, and on a short week for the Bulldogs. There are plenty of other teams in the top 25 that either have more losses, or the same (two), as the Bulldogs but still are given the benefit of the doubt.
The Broncos aren’t the only Mountain West Conference team in the top 25.
The Utah State Aggies (9-1, 6-0) are no. 13 in the coaches and no. 14 in the AP.
This bodes well not only for the MWC for conference strength perception, but the Broncos as it gives them another opportunity to get another top 25 win (again, in the month of November).
That is, of course, putting the cart well before the horse as the Broncos do have a game this Friday against New Mexico (3-7, 1-5 MWC). On paper this game shouldn’t pose a problem for the Broncos.
But, as we all know, they are still humans and susceptible to human folly. As such, this does have “trap game” written all over it: emotional high after a tough game, underdog looking to play spoiler, a top 25 team the week after. The coaching staff will have their hands full of trying to keep the players inline with expectations and not getting caught looking ahead.
Be that as it may, it’s a welcome sight to be back in the top 25.