Boise St. Broncos start with a statement

LANDOVER, Md. – Lovable upstarts no longer, Kellen Moore and Boise State look as if they are going to be serious national championship contenders.

Moore hit Austin Pettis with a 13-yard touchdown pass with 1:09 left and No. 3 Boise State passed what might be its toughest test of the regular season, beating No. 10 Virginia Tech 33-30 on Monday night.

The Broncos (1-0) came to FedEx Field with their best preseason ranking ever, ran out to a 17-0 lead in the first quarter, then had to rally themselves to extend their winning streak to 15 games.

That top-five ranking doesn’t look so strange now.

“We’re certainly proving people right right now,” Moore said.

Tyrod Taylor passed for 186 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 73 yards for the Hokies (0-1), who for the fourth straight season took a deflating early season loss.

“It’s a frustrating loss knowing that we haven’t been successful in the first game all these seasons, but I think we have a good team to go out there and bounce back from this,” Taylor said.

As for the Broncos from the Western Athletic Conference, even with 11 games left, the debate will start about whether they should become the first team from a league without an automatic BCS bid to play for a national championship if they go undefeated.

“Game 1, and that’s what it is,” said Chris Petersen, who improved to 50-4 as coach of Boise State. “We’re just pleased to get out of here with a ‘W.’ ”

Moore, the undersized Heisman Trophy contender, threw for 215 yards and three touchdowns. He led a five-play, 56-yard touchdown drive in the final two minutes – aided by a Virginia Tech personal foul penalty. After hitting Pettis on a quick slant for the winner, Moore sprinted to midfield with his hands raised high, waiting for a teammate to come celebrate with him.

“We know how much was at stake for us, so it was kind of like a bowl game, but we’ve still got 11, 12 games to go,” Pettis said. “There’s a lot we need to work on, too, because there was a lot of mistakes we made.

“We can’t afford any slip-ups, especially after setting ourselves up like this.”

No tricks this time from Boise State, which captured the hearts of football fans with its 2007 Fiesta Bowl upset of Oklahoma and have just kept on winning ever since.

The winningest team of the past decade in major college football, Boise State yet again was forced to prove it was worthy of all the accolades – this time far from home on a field that was anything but neutral, packed with Hokies fans.

“You should gain a little respect beating Virginia Tech out here,” Moore said. “You’re basically playing a road game, you’re having a heck of a game with them, just fighting back and forth.”

When it was over, the Broncos were taking a victory lap, exchanging high-fives with their fans. Even Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, who made the long trip, joined the Boise State radio announcers while they interviewed Petersen and congratulated the coach.

Boise State took the 17-0 lead by taking advantage of a handful of critical Virginia Tech mistakes that set up two TD passes by Moore. But by halftime the Hokies from the Atlantic Coast Conference, one of those six leagues with automatic BSC bids, had climbed back into it with Ryan Williams scoring twice to cut the deficit to 20-14.

“We started out the game terrible and I wouldn’t have been surprised if they would have blew us out of the world,” Williams said. “We fought back but it wasn’t enough time.”

On Boise State’s first possession of the second half, Moore fumbled when he cocked to throw and hit his own lineman. Virginia Tech recovered at the Broncos’ 31 and Williams completed the short drive with a 1-yard run around the right side.

Taylor bounded off the field and leaped into a side bump with a teammate. Virginia Tech, after a nearly burying itself in the first quarter, had its first lead at 21-20.

It lasted about a minute on the clock, and was a barn-burner to the dramatic finish.