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Boise State football is a one big winner—seriously

With Virginia Tech’s untimely loss, the Broncos pick up the mantle

NCAA Football: SERVPRO First Responder Bowl-Boston College vs Boise State Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

As far as football is concerned for 2018, the Broncos had a bit of an unceremonious ending. A second-straight Mountain West Conference title appearance that ended in a crushing loss and a kind of-sort of bowl that just ended up wasting a lot of time and money.

2018 ending was sort of ‘blah’ that had so much more potential.

But while the above statements are some that could be considered “bad” we have one final “good” thing we can hang our hat on for 2018. And that hook was given to us by our dear friends at Virginia Tech or, perhaps more accurately, Cincinnati.

Yep. The Broncos currently have a longer stretch of success than—well—anyone right now. The last losing seasons were Poky’s last season (2-10) and the Houston Nutt (4-7) holdover season (and subsequent sneak off) in 1996 and 1997 respectively.

That’s 21 years of “not sucking.” That’s old enough to drink (in the United States) and that’s just a few more years away from being able to rent a car! So that’s cool!

Since Houston Nutt, the Broncos have had coaches that have been able to maintain the winning tradition.

Dirk Koetter started his inaugural season 6-5 and trajected up from there to eventually land a Pac-10 job in Arizona State.

Dan Hawkins took that ball and ran with it to parlay his success into another “big” time offer at Colorado.

Which lead to Chris Petersen to take the Broncos in the arguable golden era of conference titles, BCS games, and a 50-3 four-year stretch. He then left for ‘greener’ pastures of Washington.

Which leads us to now. The Bryan Harsin era that keeps up the high standards and expectations of winning.

This expectation of winning is what it means to “be” Boise State. There are going to be schools that do well. There will be confluences of talent, coaching, schedule, external circumstances that will just go in another team’s favor. It benefited us, it is always bound to benefit them too.

But the consistency at which the Broncos have this success is key. There is always the “next” Boise State but are they going to hold that success? Are they going to consistently follow up that title with another, and another, and another?

There will always be down years. Every team has them as they go through certain growing pains. Attrition, graduation, leaving early to the NFL, coaching changes, administration changes, they all play a very large important role on every team and whether or not there is a possibility of success.

Check the Boise State recent history. There are few blemishes. Know what you don’t see? A winless season. Too many back-to-back losing seasons (let alone one). Coaches that had to be fired because they were not successful enough.

We don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know how football on the college level is going to be impacted whether it be by funding, realignment, division movements, or administration changes.

But we do know these truths: death, taxes, and Boise State football winning.