Presented by ZAMZOWS.
This Day In Sports…November 10, 2005, 20 years ago today:
On the fourth anniversary of the night it started, Boise State’s 31-game WAC winning streak is snapped in a 27-7 loss at Fresno State on ESPN. The Broncos scored on their second play from scrimmage—a 67-yard run by Kuna’s Jeff Carpenter—but were stifled the rest of the way by the Bulldogs. Paul Pinegar’s 307 passing yards led Fresno State’s victory, its first conference win over BSU after four years of frustrating nationally-televised losses.
All week long, everybody talked about what a great game it was going to be. In the end, it wasn’t a very good game. ESPN’s Mike Tirico tried to will it into being one after Fresno State tied the game 7-7 in the first quarter, exhorting fans of big conferences around the country to “put the remote down, because this one’s going to be fun.” The consolation for Boise State was the graphic shown multiple times on the Broncos’ WAC win streak, driving home the point that the program had done amazing things over the previous four years.
My son Mark, 11 at the time, came up with the perfect line to sum the night up. It came from the evil General Grievous in Star Wars Episode III: “Crush them. Make them suffer.” And suffer they did. The first 47 seconds couldn’t have been better for Boise State. The final 58:13 could hardly have been worse. The Broncos never recovered from a 98-yard touchdown pass from Pinegar to wide receiver Paul Williams that made it 21-7 midway through the second quarter.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the WAC championship. Fresno State, considered the best team in the conference that season, improved to 8-1 and rose to No. 16 in the AP Poll after the victory. Their only defeat had been by three points at Oregon. But the Bulldogs would not win again. They fell the following week at No. 1 USC (no shame in that—it featured a legendary performance by Reggie Bush). But Fresno State followed with losses at Nevada and at home to Louisiana Tech, forcing a three-way tie for the WAC title between the Bulldogs, the Wolf Pack…and the Broncos.
Boise State would win the next seven games against Fresno State, including thumpings of 61-10 and 51-0 on the Blue in 2008 and 2010. In 2011 the Broncos won 57-7 over the Bulldogs and sophomore quarterback Derek Carr in Fresno. They’d beat Carr again 20-10 in Boise in 2012 before he finally edged Boise State 41-40 as a senior in 2013.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
