Las Vegas Bowl: Washington beats down Boise State

Washington and Boise State made up the 2019 version of the Mitsubishi Motors Las Vegas Bowl. Boise State came in with a national ranking of 19, a 12-1 record, and were looking to put a nice Christmas bow on their season to finish 13-1. Washington came in 7-5, looking to get that eighth win, and wanting to send their retiring head coach, Chris Petersen, out with a victory.

This was one of the games where you have a Power 5 team playing a non-Power 5 team. Although, if you have seen Boise State play over the years they don’t back down from anybody.

I have always respected Boise State for that type of mentality. It’s a “anybody, anytime” mentality.

For Washington head coach, Chris Petersen, it was his last game coaching for the Huskies. Petersen is looking to do something else with his life. The grind of being a college coach has got to him. Petersen is a man of high integrity and ran his Husky program with the same type of integrity. I don’t care who you root for in college football, Coach Petersen deserves a tip of the cap for what he has done in college football.

Things came full circle for Coach Petersen as his last game was against the program that he made a name for himself with in Boise State.

Jimmy Lake, defensive coordinator, will take over the Husky program.

For the Boise State Broncos this was an opportunity to take down another big time program. However, on their first possession the Broncos turned it over. Hank Bachmeier, Boise State quarterback, threw an interception under heavy duress from the Washington defense.

Washington took that early opportunity and scored on a 12 play, 52 yard drive for an early 7-0 lead. Husky quarterback, Jacob Eason, hit Andre Baccellia on a 17 yard touchdown pass.

Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images

Early on Washington’s defense was playing with emotion and toughness. They were getting pressure on the Broncos Bachmeier. Bachmeier was having to avoid getting sacked, hit, and he had already thrown one interception.

The Husky defense was keeping the Bronco offense out of the end zone, but the Husky offense was still not doing anything to exciting.

With less than seven minutes to go in the first half the Husky offense started to wake up a little bit. Quarterback Jacob Eason led the Husky offense on 13 play, 74 yard drive that ended up with Husky running back, Salvon Ahmed scampering in from eight yards out for the touchdown.

Huskies expanded their lead to 14-0.

Boise State is known for the big offensive system. With five minutes to go until halftime the Broncos had only mustered 74 yards of offense. The Broncos had 53 yards passing, 21 yards rushing. That's not what Boise State fans are accustomed to with their offense.

Washington tacked on a 32 yard field goal right before half and went into the locker room with a 17-0 lead.

It was the first time since 2014 that Boise State had been shut out in the first half.

The first possession for the Boise State defense and offense were going to have to be big to start the second half.

Boise State’s defense got the three and out, so they did their part. Unfortunately, the Bronco offense didn’t.

Bronco quarterback, Hank Bachmeier threw his second interception. Elijah Molden of Washington took the interception deep into Boise State territory and the Huskies found the end zone shortly thereafter to take a 24-0 lead.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

In this case it means every possession is a four down possession. The Broncos had to go for it on their next possession and it paid off. Boise State gets on the board with 5:30 left in the third quarter to make the score 24-7 and provided themselves with a glimmer of hope.

Heading into the fourth quarter it was apparent that Boise State was trying to play with more urgency and a faster pace.

Like I said, every possession for the Boise State Broncos was a four down possession. Sometimes it works on fourth down, sometimes it doesn’t. For the Broncos it didn’t work on their next possession.

Washington capitalized on the down turnover. The Huskies drove the ball down the field on a six play, 60 yard drive for the touchdown. Coach Petersen brought out the halfback pass for the touchdown and it worked beautifully.

It gave Washington a commanding 31-7 lead with about 11 minutes left in the game.

Boise State fans started heading for the exits. They saw the writing on the wall.

From that point on it was only a matter of letting the clock hit zero. Washington took the air out of any balloon the Boise State Broncos thought they had.

The Huskies were the better team on Saturday night. Washington was more aggressive on defense and the Husky offense took advantage of miscues by the Boise State offense to secure a 38-7 victory for head coach Chris Petersen in his last college football game.