Boise State wasn’t exposed in Fiesta Bowl loss, but College Football Playoff seeding was

GLENDALE, Ariz. — There were two Boise States on the field on New Year’s Eve.

One was a conference champion living out a dream season. A team carried to the College Football Playoff on the back of star running back Ashton Jeanty, and a storied program atop the Group of 5 conferences once more.

The other Boise State was an outmanned G5 roster putting forth a valiant but futile effort against a better and more talented Penn State squad.

Both versions coexisted in No. 3 Boise State’s 31-14 loss to No. 6 Penn State in the Playoff quarterfinals at the Fiesta Bowl on Tuesday night. The first deserves to be celebrated. The latter provided Big Ten runner-up Penn State a seemingly easier path to the semifinals than Big Ten champion and No. 1 seed Oregon or SEC champion and No. 2 seed Georgia, and will further fuel the narrative that an imperfectly expanded Playoff needs to adjust its seeding format as soon as possible.

For Broncos fans, and those inclined to root for Cinderella, a disappointing and frustrating performance won’t diminish a magical run. No, Jeanty did not break Barry Sanders’ single-season rushing record, coming up 27 yards shy in his lowest rushing output of the season. No, the sport’s preeminent underdog couldn’t pull off yet another Fiesta Bowl upset, on the same field that hosted the program’s defining victories. But 2024 will go down as one of the most memorable seasons in the history of Boise State football.

“I’m so proud of this team. It didn’t go our way tonight, but they re-established the standard in Boise to be a light on the hill, to the country, that had been lost for a little bit,” said head coach Spencer Danielson. “That’s a legacy that can never be taken from them.”

For the other CFP teams that weren’t on the field Tuesday, or fans of college football at-large — an admittedly hard-to-satisfy lot — the matchup underscored a crucial flaw in a system meant to reward conference champions, but designed before realignment thinned the Power 5 to a top-heavy Power 4.

The fault in this Playoff formula, with byes going to the four highest-ranked conference champions, was obvious well before the teams were splashed across ESPN on Selection Sunday, including ninth-ranked Boise State jumping all the way to the No. 3 seed courtesy of a Mountain West championship. It created a bracket where No. 1 Oregon is set to face sixth-ranked Ohio State, which is seeded eighth, and No. 2 Georgia meets fifth-ranked Notre Dame, which is seeded seventh, on New Year’s Day.

Those who understood the format have been warning of these unintended consequences for months. But seeing is believing, and Penn State drove that reality home in the Fiesta Bowl as the fourth-ranked team but No. 6 seed against the ninth-ranked but No. 3 seed Broncos. In a multi-billion-dollar tournament that was years in the making, it was simple negligence (or maybe stubbornness?) that allowed a higher-ranked but lower-seeded team to enter a neutral site, national championship quarterfinal as an 11.5-point favorite — a game the Nittany Lions ultimately won by 17.

“Obviously tonight, we didn’t execute the way we needed to, to win a heavyweight fight like we knew this was going to be,” Danielson said.

Boise State committed four turnovers and 13 penalties. (Mark J. Rebilas / Imagn Images)

Boise State wasn’t a charity case. It outgained Penn State 412 yards to 387, and plenty of its problems — including 13 penalties for 90 yards — were self-inflicted. But a Broncos team that lost only eight turnovers all season committed four on Tuesday, and it benefitted from an opponent that played with its food for the better part of three quarters. Penn State led from wire to wire, and outside of the lead briefly being cut to 17-14 early in the second half, the Nittany Lions felt in control the entire way.

“I think the Big Ten has prepared our guys,” Penn State coach James Franklin said. “Boise is a really good football team. … We were not taking them lightly. We talk about the maturity of our football team — I think that shows up.”

The loss isn’t an indictment of Boise State, or the 12-win season that preceded it. And this isn’t the same debate as those kvetching about Indiana and SMU earning at-large bids. There is no good-faith argument that the Broncos didn’t deserve a Playoff spot and a chance to compete for a national title.

This team exemplified the bigger-tent approach this sport has desperately lacked for decades. The same praises and criticisms that elevated Boise also apply to No. 4 seed Arizona State out of the Big 12, which was slotted 12th in the final CFP rankings and will play third-ranked and No. 5 seed Texas in Wednesday’s Peach Bowl. But the Broncos had the first crack at proving the doubters wrong, validating their “Please count us out” T-shirts. Instead, they left it even harder to justify a system that made the No. 5 and 6 seeds — and losing a conference championship — look more advantageous than the top two spots.

Boise State has nothing to apologize for. Offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter acknowledged to The Athletic last week that the Playoff’s seeding system will likely be changed, perhaps as early as next season. But it’s not as if the Broncos orchestrated or exploited the system.

“We didn’t make those (bye) rules,” Koetter said. “I’m smart enough to realize we might not be the third-best team, but we definitely deserve to be in there.”

Danielson echoed that sentiment after the game on Tuesday, just as the clock struck midnight back on the East Coast, ringing in the new year. College football in 2025 is better for having an expanded Playoff, widening the path to compete for a national title. Boise State earned its entry to that path this season, just like SMU and Penn State and Georgia and every other team in the field. That shouldn’t change moving forward.

Even if — at the same time, on the same field — Boise State was also the reason that path is bound to look a little different the next time the Broncos get there.