Broncos busted
Boise State loses wild one to Nevada
RENO, Nev. – Two missed kicks and Boise State went from being the darling of BCS busters everywhere to just another team looking for a bowl game.
After winning 24 straight games, maybe it was just not meant to be.
Nevada roared back from a 17-point halftime deficit Friday night, beating No. 3 Boise State 34-31 in overtime in a wild game for the Wolf Pack’s biggest win in school history. It snapped Boise State’s winning streak and ended any hopes the Broncos would play in the BCS title game.
A game that the Broncos seemingly had in hand slipped away when normally efficient kicker Kyle Brotzman missed a 26-yard field goal with 2 seconds left in regulation and another from 29 yards in overtime. Nevada’s redshirt freshman kicker Anthony Martinez didn’t miss his chance in overtime, hitting a 34-yarder that touched off a jubilant celebration from a soldout crowd on the Nevada campus.
“We had a chance to win it,” Boise State coach Chris Petersen said. “You play two evenly matched teams it usually comes down to a couple of plays. It’s tough, it probably shouldn’t have come down to that.”
In the space of one bad half, the Broncos (10-1, 6-1 Western Athletic Conference) most likely lost out on playing in any BCS bowl. On the verge of playing in a big game with a win, they will likely be relegated to the Humanitarian Bowl, played on their own blue field in Boise, or the Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francisco.
Nevada (11-1, 6-1) rallied from a 17-point halftime deficit to tie the game with 13 seconds left on a 7-yard pass to Rishard Mathews, who had two second-half touchdowns for the Wolf Pack. But Boise State appeared poised to pull the game out after Kellen Moore hit Titus Young with a 53-yard pass on the first play from scrimmage after the score.
Brotzman, who leads all active players in career scoring, pushed the short kick right, sending the game into overtime. Nevada won the coin toss and deferred and Brotzman came out to try another field goal, but pulled it left.