Boise State November to Remember?
Once in the Group of 5 Drivers seat the Boise State football team will need some help to get to a New Years Six Bowl AKA The Cotton Bowl.
The Broncos will also have to take care of business in a November primed to be a challenge at the least.
Coming off a bye Boise State has had a long time to dwell on what could have been at BYU. I long time to wait to erase the taste of defeat and to refocus on the goal of winning a Mountain West Championship.
Boise State can take solace in the fact three Top 10 teams lost over the weekend with Oklahoma, Notre Dame and Auburn all going down in flames. Just shows that on any given day in college football anybody can get beat.
That needs to be a huge lesson for Boise State as they face five league games on five November weekends and three of those games will be on the road.
The run starts Saturday at San Jose State which at the beginning of the season seemed a sure win but the Spartans are 4-4 and coming off a win at Army.
The Broncos are favored by 16 but don't tell that to the San Jose State players.
Following Saturdays game in San Jose the Broncos are home on consecutive weekends to Wyoming and New Mexico where they should be able to protect the Blue and win at home.
Then November turns cold and ugly with games at Utah State and Colorado State. The Aggies took a hit over the weekend losing 31-7 to Air Force while Colorado State beat Fresno State 41-31. Right now the Mountain West is really hard to figure.
Can Boise State go 5-0 in November, especially with three of the five games on the road?
The answer is yes but that will depend on BSU's focus as a team. That focus was missing in Provo.
Boise State heads into this weekend rankled 21st in the AP Media poll, a jump of one spot from last week but SMU, Cincinnati and Appalachian State, all Group of 5 teams are all; ahead of the Broncos in the race for the Cotton Bowl.
SMU is 8-0 and probably needs to lose for BSU to have a shot but that's out of their hands, what the Broncos can do is go 5-0 in November and then win the the Conference Championship game December 7th. If all that happens and the Broncos are 12-1 it would be hard to keep BSU out of Dallas on New Years Day.