To say a rainy Friday night at Scott Stadium was gloomy doesn’t really do it justice. It started with a disastrous bang and limped to a lonely whimper. In the end, the stands contained few fans and even less hope after Boise State thumped Virginia, 56-14.
It marked the third most lopsided loss in the Mike London era at Virginia after the Hoos twice lost 59-10 to Oregon and Clemson in 2013. The 42-point margin is the largest for Boise State against a Power Five team as well as the largest road victory for any Mountain West team over a Power Five team. This was the Broncos first true road victory against a Power Five Team since 2008.
“Obviously, we played poorly tonight,” London said. “You can’t have five turnovers. After our first play from scrimmage, it all went downhill. That’s another good football team, but we can play better than that and we have. The [bye week] break for us now is to take care of ourselves, get some guys healed up, and get ready for our first conference game against Pittsburgh. This game isn’t indicative of the effort we’ve given in the past. There are a lot of things we need to correct moving forward.”
The Broncos bucked the Hoos almost immediately. They scored a defensive touchdown on the first play of the game when UVa quarterback Matt Johns tried to throw a pass while being sacked. Justin Taimatuia snared the ball out of the air and rumbled 21 yards to make it 7-0 just 14 seconds into the contest. The visitors never relinquished control after that moment.
Boise followed a three-and-out for Virginia with an 80-yard drive in just 2:32 and six plays to make it 14-0. When Johns was intercepted on the next drive, BSU added a field goal for a 17-0 lead a mere 7:07 into the game.
“We needed to figure out a way, on the road, to play better and create more momentum,” Boise State coach Bryan Harsin said. “You can’t create it any faster than getting a touchdown on the very first play of the game. Our deal was to get a fast start and we needed to get things in our favor in a hurry, not just from the defensive side but from the offensive. Either way we wanted to create the momentum for our quarterback, for our team, for the mentality that we wanted to play with and we did exactly that.”
The advantage ballooned to 22 points midway through the second quarter and swelled to the full 42-point blowout in the end. In a nutshell, the Broncos did more than gain some early momentum. They dominated from beginning to end in nearly every available category with more rushing yards, more passing yards, more touchdown passes, and more tackles.
Plus, the visitors ruled the most important category of all in this game: turnovers. Boise State forced five turnovers with four interceptions and a fumble recovery. In addition to Taimatuia’s touchdown to start the game, the Broncos added another pick-6 in the third quarter when Mercy Maston jumped a route and took the interception 25 yards for the score. In total, they posted 27 points off of turnovers and added a safety as well when Johns was flagged for intentional grounding.
It was all part of a miserable night for Johns, who struggled in a mighty way. He completed just 12 of 25 passes for 199 yards with 3 interceptions and 2 touchdown passes. He was sacked three times as well.
The Cavaliers finished with 273 yards of offense and two big plays accounted for most of that total. T.J. Thorpe caught a 75-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter when he tip-toed up the sideline and scored. Taquan Mizzell turned a pass into a 45-yard touchdown in late in the second quarter. Outside of those 120 yards, UVa averaged 2.4 yards on the other 66 plays.
“We had really one good drive … but other than that we couldn’t build off our own momentum,” Johns said. He later added that “they were dropping right into our spots and it was hard. That’s a very good defense and they were stopping the run and stopping the pass.”
The Virginia defense had its share of issues as well. While the Hoos improved their run defense to a degree, holding the Broncos to 89 yards and 2.9 yards per carry, they still allowed 447 yards of total offense. They also gave up more big plays for scores. BSU receiver Thomas Sperbeck hauled in touchdown passes of 64 and 30 yards, the seventh and eighth scoring plays of 24 yards or more allowed by the UVa defense this season. Sperbeck led all players with 121 receiving yards on five catches.
True freshman quarterback Brett Rypien triggered those passes as part of a big night. Making the first start of his career, Rypien torched UVa for 321 yards and 3 touchdowns on 24-of-35 passing. He hit four different receivers with at least five completions each. That included Jeremy McNichols, who posted 5 catches for 47 yards and 1 touchdown to go with 9 carries for 69 yards and 1 touchdown. McNichols is leading the Football Bowl Subdivision in rushing touchdowns.
It all left the Hoos in re-evaluation mode with a bye week before their conference slate begins on Oct. 10.
“The captains were mostly saying that we have to keep our heads up and that we can’t let this loss get to us,” said linebacker Zach Bradshaw, who had a team-high 10 tackles. “We did not play well at all, so if we continue to play like this, obviously, we are going to have a similar season as the few in the past. We have to keep our heads up and stay unified as a group without pointing figures. We have to move on.”
