Our long national nightmare is over.
Well, kind of.
Boise State got the dub (super-great!) but looked kinda ‘meh’ while doing it against an FCS team (not quite as great). Yeah, North Dakota is good–for an FCS team–but the Broncos, nor the fans, should have been sweating it as much as we collectively did.
The Broncos had opened the game with a quick 12-yard run by Jeanty and a sweet-first down. Then immediately had to punt it away. This was matched by a North Dakota three-and-out.
The Broncos did go on a 12 play, 71-yard drive to score the games first touchdown with Taylen Green walking it in for the score (Jonah Dalmas PAT was good, natch).
UND then took their turn scoring on the ensuing drive, less good but the PAT failed so, we can call that a push since the Broncos were still up 7-6.
The Broncos did manage to rattle off three TD drives (two Ashton Jeanty rush TDs and an Eric McAlister TD reception). To put the Broncos up 28-6. You’ll never know it, but catching the ball is pretty good.
The defense played ok(?) given the opponent by limiting certain pass plays (no one look at the over the top plays, please) and pressuring Tommy Schuster (he was sacked five times).
Things were starting to settle down for the Broncos until the third quarter where Broncos turned the ball over three times (twice by Jeanty on fumbles, and an INT that hit Riley Smith right in the hands). The Fighting Hawks did score on those two turnovers (touchdowns) but managed to goof up the two-point conversion every time. Good.
The Broncos had to “resettle” down and managed to keep North Dakota out of the endzone while scoring two more times (one more rush from Jeanty and a McAlister reception in what you could call “garbage” time from Madsen). This put the Broncos up 42-18.
There were some good that came of this: Jambres ‘Breezy’ Dubar’s coming out party: 62 yards rushing (and he probably should have had that TD that went to Jeanty). Eric McAlister reasserts that he is the future of Broncos receiving with 143 yards off six catches and two TDs. Dalmas did hit a 54-yard FG that was waved off due to a roughing the kicker penalty.
Some bad: tackling could be better. Special teams gets a bit of a side-eye. CATCH THE BALL.
Nice to get in the win column for 2023.
Go Broncos!
Yes, CATCH THE BALL! For crying out loud! Green hasn’t looked great, but his receiving corps has flat-out DROPPED 10+ passes this young season. Today was some cause for hope, but the talent needs to play better. 😳
Well hopefully the Huskies handle the Spartans.
Make our loss not that bad. At least we scored
Also just looked Mizzou is 3-0 this year without Bush Hamdan
80 was the light that shined. The rest… not very good. Defensively they need to bench 14.
Our two losses look a little better today. UW and UCF are both looking good—UW very good indeed.
And Wyoming can certainly hold their heads high.
I feel you. We may have lost to two very good teams. But the eyes don’t lie and having seen us play and watching some of these other Mountain West teams play, I think we really need to find some more offensive playmakers or we are going to be in trouble in conference play.
Also Fresno and UNLV got some wins. Fresno pitched a shut out.
It’s a W! Had to listen to the game today and had some spotty reception. But it seems like we continued to lack play making abilities, not putting this game away until late. Heard the ole “off the hands of the receiver “, which I assume to mean dropped a lot of passes. But not having watched the game, I will not comment about the performance.
The rest of the Mountain West sounds competitive. Even UNLV is staying in their game. If we don’t find some playmakers, this season could be an uphill battle.
Well, it’s a W. It was ugly though. Some things I’ve noticed, and please correct me if I come across as negative. First, our offense is predictable and vanilla. I had some scary flashbacks to Robert Prince. Green looks out of sorts. To me, what Dirk Koetter capitalized on last year appears to have been put through some kind of ringer and squeezed out. Our OL is….well, pretty much the same. Not many holes to get through. Defense-sigh…..This is the same DC as last year, but we look pretty rough. I know we have a lot of new starters in… Read more »