With the 2025 Boise State football season now finished, we can take a look back and see the full picture of what went right and what went wrong for the Broncos.
The season, which ended with a 38-10 loss to Washington on Saturday in the LA Bowl, was a bit of a mixed bag. There was the good: A third straight Mountain West Championship on the way out the door. A 3-1 record against the teams that finished tied with the Broncos atop the Mountain West, including a 38-21 win against UNLV in the conference championship game.
But for the second time in three years, Boise State finished the season with five losses. The Broncos’ two conference losses were to Fresno State and San Diego State, teams that will join them in the rebuilt Pac-12 next season. For the third straight year, Boise State lost its bowl game.
Speaking of the bowl game, in this new era of college football, a place in the College Football Playoff feels like the expectation every year for Boise State. After a 34-7 loss to South Florida in the season opener, Boise State was rarely mentioned as a CFP contender as the American Athletic Conference dominated the Group of 5 discussion all season. With a couple more wins, Boise State might have worked its way back into the conversation, as two Group of Five teams made the field in Tulane and James Madison.
But back-to-back conference losses to start November ultimately denied the Broncos any shot.
So, with the season finished, we looked at three areas the Broncos need to look at this offseason as they prepare to start the Pac-12 era.
OFFENSIVE CONSISTENCY
This proved to be the Broncos’ bugaboo all season long.
Sure, Boise State had to navigate an injury to starting quarterback Maddux Madsen in three of its five losses, but the common theme of each loss was offensive struggles.
But when the offense was firing on all cylinders, it was tough to stop.
In its nine wins, Boise State averaged 42.2 points per game. While most teams headed to bowl games still have at least one game left to play, had the Broncos kept that consistency throughout the entire season, they would currently rank fourth in the nation in scoring offense. Boise State scored at least 24 points in each win and at least 38 points in seven of them.
The 10 points scored against Washington were the Broncos’ most in a loss. In each of the other four losses, Boise State scored seven.
A big part of the offensive consistency were the big plays which resulted in a gain of 20 yards or more, something coach Spencer Danielson brought up frequently throughout the season. Boise State had 75 such plays during the 2025 season, 64 of which came in wins. All 19 touchdowns scored that were 20 or more yards came in the wins.
ELIMINATING PENALTIES
Another thing Danielson railed on at multiple points this season was the penalties. Boise State was among one of the more penalized teams in the nation this season, with their 97 penalties and 832 penalty yards both currently ranking bottom 10 in the nation, with most of the bowl season still needing to be played.
The Broncos averaged almost two more penalties per game in losses than they did in wins, with those penalties often erasing decent gains on offense or extending drives on defense.
QUARTERBACK PRESSURE
When it made the CFP in 2024, Boise State led the nation in sacks with 55. While the Broncos lost edge rusher Ahmed Hassanein to the NFL, Boise State brought back a lot of that production, including Jayden Virgin-Morgan, who led the team with 10 sacks last season.
That number dropped significantly in 2025, with Boise State finishing the season with just 28 sacks, just a little more than half of what they had a season before.
Virgin-Morgan led the team in sacks yet again, but this season, he finished with six. By comparison Virgin-Morgan, Hassanein and even safety Seyi Oladipo each finished with more than six sacks last season.
In fact, behind Oladipo, the secondary sack production was a big storyline last season in the defense’s sack numbers, as they picked up 13. This season, they combined for 2.5 sacks.
While Boise State matched a season-high with five sacks in the loss to Washington, the Broncos also finished losses against Notre Dame, Fresno State and San Diego State without getting to the quarterback once.