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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The first time Spencer Danielson watched Boise State football was the first time for a lot of people: the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.
Danielson was a senior in high school, watching from Southern California with his father as the Broncos pulled off one of the most preposterous upsets in college football history: the last-ditch hook-and-lateral, the Statue of Liberty handoff in overtime to defeat Oklahoma, running back Ian Johnson’s post-game proposal on one knee.
Danielson didn’t know then that he would be hired by that same program as a graduate assistant 10 years later, or that he would be named head coach seven years after that. But he witnessed something special, something that lingered.
Boise State is 3-0 all-time in the Fiesta Bowl, winning again in 2010 over TCU and in 2014 over Arizona, a trio of defining victories for a school that didn’t start playing at the FBS level until 1996. So it’s fitting that Danielson, at 36, has led the Broncos back here, in his first full season at the helm, to a game that encapsulates so much of that legacy.
No. 3-seed Boise State (12-1) and No. 6 Penn State (12-2) will meet for the first time Tuesday in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff, with Penn State 7-0 all-time in Fiesta Bowl appearances.
It makes for another tailored storyline: Boise State, college football’s OG giant slayer, emerging in the first season of the 12-team Playoff to grab a Group of 5 bid out of the Mountain West and a first-round bye, punching up once again.
According to Danielson, the journey of this dream season started with Jeanty’s decision to return to the Broncos.
But the most overlooked (and maybe most important) piece of this Boise State revival is the Playoff’s most anonymous head coach. Danielson recaptured what Boise State football is all about — and has dared to push it even higher.
That sentiment can come off as saccharine. It sounds great during an 11-game winning streak or at a post-championship podium, but love doesn’t run block or make open-field tackles, and love won’t shut down Penn State’s Tyler Warren or Abdul Carter. Yet Danielson’s message of sacrifice and accountability has resonated for this group, providing that extra variable needed to elevate a good team, at a school that has always had to do a little more with a little less and be greater than the sum of its parts.
Ask Danielson why he became a football coach and you get a free history lesson.
That pull started when Danielson was a try-hard linebacker at Azusa Pacific University, an NAIA school outside Los Angeles. He worked as a counselor at a Northern California high school football camp during the summer and still gets choked up talking about how the kids opened up to their coaches. He went into that summer as a business major preparing to start his MBA and find the quickest path to make money.
There are a lot of old-timers, me included, that some of this crap just drives you crazy. He’s got the right mentality for how to navigate the changing landscape of college football.
It makes for a promising if uncertain future, with Boise State set to join a refurbished Pac-12 in 2026 as it attempts to keep pace financially. In the meantime, Dickey is working toward a contract extension for Danielson that would bolster the staff salary pool while continuing to strive for increased resources.
All of that will have to wait. Right now, Danielson’s approach has propelled Boise State through a gilded but challenging season, breathing new life into the program’s David vs. Goliath roots. It’s also instilled a confidence Danielson has preached all season, including the Week 2 game at Oregon, which Boise State lost on a last-second field goal. Danielson is fond of the phrase, “Our best is enough, but our best is required.” That game exemplified it.
We lost the game. But I think after that, our team knew that our best is enough here. We know we can beat any team in the country.
Boise State will get a chance to prove it, finally receiving a legit shot at a national championship. First up, Danielson, Jeanty and the Broncos must deliver yet another Fiesta Bowl memory.
We walk by those trophies every day. Being able to work our tail off to add to that legacy or even push it past where it is, that’s something we’re very excited about.
Even in this, there are people who count us out. We hear how it’s an easy road for somebody to go through Boise in the quarterfinals. That’s awesome. That’s what this place is built on: blue-collar, chip on your shoulder, count us out.
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