The ghost of Coach Pete is running around in the Boise State football facility. Every time Athletic Department staffers and players think they see Coach Pete in the halls they remember how much better it was when he was there.
They forget all the things that weren’t perfect.
Players he booted off the team. Hayden Plinke, Lee Hightower, and Sam Ukwuachu. Assistant coaches he lost to other programs. Wilcox, Pease, Harsin, Yates and Choate. Assistant coaches that didn’t work out that were reassigned or not re hired. Tuivai, Huff and Prince. Whispers about Coach Pete’s paranoia. He banned freshman from talking to the media, closed practices to the media and denied media access to certain players countless times. Recruits washed out. Especially Qb’s. Losses to Nevada and TCU that cost them BCS bowls. Embarrassing losses to East Carolina, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon St and San Diego St at home. A quick no public statement exit.
The reason those things aren’t remembered first is because Coach Pete won so often and brought home huge BCS opponent wins and Fiesta Bowls. And, he was so humble, genuinely interested in others and winning Bear Bryant awards.
He was Saint Pete.
We also admired the 20 players during his time who were drafted into the NFL, 6 of who by the way were in the program when he was promoted.
The Bryan Harsin era is off to a similar start though. Both coaches won Fiesta Bowls their first season and dealt with assistants leaving after the season. Petersen with OL line coach Sean Kugler to the NFL and Harsin with OC Mike Sanford to Notre Dame. Pete had 6 NFL draft picks his first two seasons; Harsin will probably end up with 3-4. Both had star QBS on those 1st year teams that graduated and had to be replaced. Coach Pete’s second season included a road loss to a 4-9 Washington team that had the worst defense in the history of Washington football. Boise State scored 10 points. The 2007 Boise State defense collapsed but still snuck out a 69-67 four overtime win at home vs Nevada. Nevada ended the season 6-7. And, the best Hawaii team ever, snapped Boise State’s 6 year conference championship streak with a 39-27 win on the islands. The Broncos allowed 575 yards of offense. The misery continued with a return trip to the Hawaii Bowl 30 days later. Coach Pete wanted to reward the players with a nice bowl game and took fairly easy matchup vs 7-5 East Carolina. Boise State was a 10 point favorite. They gained 3 yards in the first quarter and allowed 181 yards of offense to ECU and trailed at the half 31-14. They lost on a field goal 41-38 and QB Taylor Tharp said Boise State wasn’t ready to go and missed assignments. THUD.
Harsin’s second season began with a heartbreaking loss to a good 9-4 BYU team in Provo. Then during the 3rd game of the year starting QB Ryan Finley was lost for the season. The offense had been sputtering to that date anyway, so most thought the move to a true Freshman QB in Rypien was a good thing. It was until the Broncos committed 8 turnovers, their most in 26 years, and allowed the most points in regulation in 17 years and lost 52-26 to Utah State. The back to back home losses to a 7-6 New Mexico team and 8-6 Air Force were defensive embarrassments. The season was lost until the dismantling of Northern Illinois in San Diego.
The point is both the 2007 and 2015 seasons had some real lows. Both programs dealt with adversity and less then Boise State standard results. And, yes the program just lost both their offensive and defensive coordinators for different reasons but the same thing happened in 2010 and 2011. The Kellen Moore era began in 2008, his second year in the program. The Brett Rypien era heads into year #2 as well. We know how the program took off 2008-2011. We will see about 2016-2019.
