Tired of losing to Boise State?

Texas Christian coach Gary Patterson, whose Horned Frogs are the last team to beat the Broncos, can offer help.
Want Fresno State to ruin Boise State’s run toward a Bowl Championship Series game?
East Carolina’s Skip Holtz, ex-Hawaii coach June Jones and former Washington coach Tyrone Willingham have all shown the way.
Oregon coach Chip Kelly, whose Ducks lost to the Broncos in this season’s opener, also has valuable insight. Because, hey, losing teams know exactly what doesn’t work.
Taking a page or two from each coach’s playbook — and scrapping a few pages that didn’t work — helps provide Bulldogs coach Pat Hill with the ultimate guide on how to beat the Broncos.
Fresno State (1-1) hosts No. 10 Boise State (2-0) at 6 p.m. PDT on Friday in the Bulldogs’ marquee matchup of the season.
“Coaches, we’re all thieves — we all steal ideas from each other,” said Idaho coach Robb Akey, who shares a common mission with Hill in wanting to bring down the Vandals’ in-state rival and the Bulldogs’ Western Athletic Conference arch nemesis.
Here are the key elements:
Control the run
When Hill talks about keys to beating the six-time WAC champ, he immediately references the run game.
That’s fine and all.
But Fresno State has lost seven of the past eight games in the series, including three straight, with that strategy. And last year’s outing was the Bulldogs’ worst showing: 61-10 in a regular-season finale at Bronco Stadium.
How does Fresno State avoid a similar fate? How about actually executing the plan.
In Fresno State’s three games against Boise State since coach Chris Petersen took over, the Bulldogs have rushed for an average of 91.3 yards. Boise State has averaged 276 rushing yards.
When TCU beat Boise State 17-16 in the Poinsettia Bowl last year, the Horned Frogs ran for 275 yards and held the Broncos to 28.
()()Fresno State doesn’t have the player personnel that TCU had. But the Bulldogs showed they are a better defense than they were a year ago in limiting run-oriented Wisconsin to 188 rushing yards last week.
Boise State’s run game, meanwhile, has yet to take off this year, averaging 145.5 yards per game and 3.3 per carry with running back Ian Johnson gone.
“People might not want to hear it,” Hill said, “but the team that is able to run the football in this game will have a great advantage.”
Practice, practice, practice
There’s a common factor why Boise State has lost four of its past five bowl games: Teams have more time to prepare for the Broncos’ unique offense that is filled with a variety of pre-snap movement.
“If I was having to play Boise State every year, I’d be working on them in the spring, I’d be working on them during two-a-days, even if I didn’t play them in the first couple of ballgames,” Patterson said. “I would treat them like our Air Force game here with their triple offense. You’ve got to get yourself ready to go.”
Hill said the Bulldogs have prepped occasionally for the Broncos since the spring.
Still, even when a team has an entire offseason to gear up for Boise State as Oregon had, stopping the Broncos requires not getting distracted by their motion and shifts.
“All the motions and shifts they do pre-snap to try to confuse your defense, if you don’t face an offense like that very often, it takes a bit of getting used to,” said Kelly, whose Ducks lost to the Broncos 19-8 two weeks ago. “If you don’t make the right adjustments, it kind of confuses you and takes your eyes off what you should be looking at.”
Running QBs help
In three of four Boise State losses with Petersen at the helm, the opposing team had a mobile quarterback capable of breaking a long run.
TCU’s Andy Dalton ran 16 times for 74 yards.
East Carolina, which beat Boise State 41-38 in the Hawaii Bowl in 2007, ran Patrick Pinkney 11 times for 53 yards.
Earlier in the 2007 season, Washington defeated Boise State 24-10 with Jake Locker rushing 16 times for 84 yards and a touchdown.
Fresno State might be wise to turn a bit more to Ebahn Feathers in place of starting quarterback Ryan Colburn. Feathers is said to hold Fresno State’s fastest career mark by a quarterback in a 40-yard dash.
So far, Feathers has rushed four times for 32 yards and one touchdown. He has thrown and completed one pass for 3 yards.
A crisp 2-minute offense
Hawaii beat Boise State 39-27 in 2007, the game secured on a touchdown pass with 26 seconds left.
East Carolina won after marching 54 yards on a final drive that started with 1:25 to play and ended with a field goal as time expired.
TCU might have needed to make a final drive, too, had the Horned Frogs not made a game-clinching interception with 1:47 remaining.
Make ’em kick
Boise State’s Kyle Brotzman might’ve entered this season with a school-record 116 straight extra points made. But this season, the junior has been shaky.
Brotzman has missed 2 of 3 field goals and 1 of 6 extra points. Against Oregon, the Broncos had two missed field goals and a botched field-goal snap.
Fresno State could benefit by forcing the Broncos into tense kicking situations.
“We know what we have to do to beat them,” Bulldogs receiver Marlon Moore said.
Incorporating these elements is a start.