Boise State Football: Game-by-game predictions for 2017
By Zach Bigalke
Final Standings: 11-2 (7-1 Mountain West)
Boise State will accomplish its primary goal, winning the Mountain West for the first time since 2014. Unfortunately, they might still get iced out of the New Year’s Six bowl games. They will be pitted against teams like South Florida in the race for the automatic Group of Five bid. And the Bulls are probably the more complete team this year.
Thus the selection committee will take a USF team that will likely be undefeated ahead of two-loss Boise State. Instead of another Fiesta Bowl trip, Bryan Harsin’s team will have to settle for a different bowl destination. They will still be likely to face a Power Five opponent, and it could be a rather familiar foe that they take on in the postseason.
Possible bowl matchup: Las Vegas Bowl vs. Oregon
Oregon and Boise State have met only twice in college football history. In 2008, the Broncos knocked off Mike Bellotti’s last Ducks squad in Eugene. The following year, they ruined Chip Kelly’s first game as a head coach with a 19-8 win at home. But that game is remembered more for the altercation between LeGarrette Blount and Byron Hout in the postgame reverie than the 60 minutes of action.
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The Las Vegas Bowl has not welcomed the Broncos to Sin City since Chris Petersen’s penultimate year in Boise in 2012. They have been to Vegas only once since then, doubling up the score in a 55-27 win over UNLV on Halloween 2015. The bowl game will get to welcome two big teams to reprise what looked to be a budding rivalry.