BOISE — While the early season results on the scoreboard might make Boise State football fans happy, coaches know there’s still a lot to be desired on the defensive side of the ball.

Despite holding their own in the season opener against Oregon and rallying in the second half to beat Memphis 38-20 on Saturday in a key Group of Six showdown, statistically the Broncos rank as one of the worst defenses in the country, and that’s something coaches know they need to fix. In Saturday’s win against Memphis, Boise State’s defense gave up 519 total yards, the most since giving up 530 in a 2023 loss to UCF.

“You’re not going to be successful as a defense when you give up those kind of yards,” Boise State coach Spencer Danielson said in his Monday press conference as Boise State (1-1) turns its attention to Saturday’s game against South Dakota (3-0). “They’re fixable things, we got a plan to make sure they get fixed in practice. There’s an answer that we need to have happen this week. We have to make sure we get that fixed because giving up 500 yards of offense and close to 10 explosive plays is unacceptable.”

Through two games this season, Boise State ranks 136th out of 138 FBS teams in total defense, giving up 508 yards per game. A big part of that is the pass defense, where Boise State ranks dead last, 138th in the country, giving up 381 passing yards per game. Comparatively, the No. 137 team, Stanford, is giving 353.5 passing yards per game, while the Broncos and Cardinal are just two of five teams giving up more than 300 passing yards per game in the early part of the season.

“Honestly, it’s a huge concern,” Danielson said about the struggles in the secondary. “We got the coaches and we got the players to do it. I told our staff today, and our players understand, ‘if it’s not excellent, it’s not OK.’ Giving up 500 yards of offense two weeks in a row is not OK, period, end of story, end of discussion, we have to get it fixed.”

A big part of those defensive struggles are in the explosive plays opponents have been able to put up. Combined, Oregon and Memphis had 14 plays which went for 20 or more yards. On those 14 plays, Boise State has given up a combined 671 yards. That’s nearly two-thirds of the total yards given up by the defense on 12% of the plays it has had.

“If we could go back in time and say we gave up 20 (points) and beat Memphis, we’d all sign up for that,” said defensive coordinator Erik Chinander. “It’s frustrating in the fact that Memphis is a very good team, taking nothing away from them, they had good schemes, good football players, but we allowed a majority of those things to happen. A couple of those, Memphis had a better deal than us, hats off to them. But we allowed those things to happen and that’s the frustrating part.”

BOISE STATE-WESTERN MICHIGAN TO KICK OFF IN THE AFTERNOONWhile Boise State does not have an exact time for kickoff in its game against Western Michigan next week, the Bronco Bowl will start in the afternoon.

The Mid-American Conference announced Monday that the Sept. 26 contest between the two schools — which share the Bronco mascot — will kickoff at either 1:30 or 2 p.m. MDT and be televised by either ESPN2 or ESPNU. Final kickoff time and TV designation will be given following this weekend’s games.

The contest will be the first-ever meeting between the two schools, who both received votes in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll. It’s the first game of a home-and- home series, with Western Michigan slated to make the trip to Boise in 2029.