“When you take on a really good football team you need to bring your A-game. I told our team we didn’t bring our A-game.” This was how head coach Mark Hudspeth opened his conference Saturday afternoon after a beatdown from the Boise State Broncos that ended with the score of 45-10.
The onslaught started early with the Broncos scoring on the opening drive with a one-yard rush from Jeremy McNichols to make it 7-0. The Cajuns started off strong offensively with Anthony Jennins completing his first pass wearing vermillion and white to Elijah McGuire to get near midfield. However, on the next play a chop block pushed them back almost to where they started and had to settle for a punt. Boise State struck yet again with a 42 yard pass from Brett Rypien that came off of a busted coverage by the defense.
It seemed that the Broncos had scouted the new zone defense being used by co-defensive coordinators Melvin Smith and Charlie Harbison. Otha Peters after the game let people into why the performance on the secondary may have been like it was. “At practice the same people that were messing up on their assignments were the same messing up in the game. We gotta focus more on practice.”
The Broncos pulled a trick play out of their playbook and had wide receiver Thomas Sperbeck send one flying to McNichols for another easy touchdown. McNichols found paydirt for the third time in the first half with a 7 yard run to make it 28-0 early in the second quarter.
After another touchdown pass from Rypien to Sprebeck extended their lead, the Cajuns finally got on the board at the buzzer with a 44 yard field goal from Stevie Artigue, who had missed his first one from the same spot only a few minutes before and headed into the locker room down 35-3.
The Broncos began to let up with a lengthy drive that took over six minutes and ended with Tyler Rausa booting a 30-yarder through the uprights to make it 38-3. The Cajuns finally got in the endzone early in the first quarter with a 11 yard pass to Keenan Barnes to make it 38-10. But the fun times wouldn’t last when the Broncos would put the finishing touch on the game with a short rush from Mattison midway through the fourth quarter.
The Cajuns (0-1) will try to get their first win of the season against McNeese State (1-0) with kickoff set for 6 pm.
-Clint Domingue