The Boise State Broncos learned a valuable lesson on Saturday evening at the hands of TCU sophomore quarterback Casey Pachall—we aren’t as good as we thought.
The Bronco secondary was torched for 473 yards through the air and at times looked utterly confused and lost.
“It’s not totally on the secondary; everybody is involved there. We’ve got to get some pressure and make sure he doesn’t hold it too long. Again, those are things we need to learn from ‘cause we’ll see it again,” Head Coach Chris Petersen said.
Pachall and the Horned Frog offense stunned the 34,146 in attendance by putting up huge numbers in the first half and taking a 20-14 lead into halftime.
TCU’s three scoring drives in the first half consisted of a total of nine plays for 232 yards and spanned three minutes, 18 seconds. All three scores came off deep passes that had gotten behind the Bronco secondary—the shortest of the three being 69 yards.
“We play with who we got. I thought they played hard, competed and again there are some things we need to get cleaned up,” Petersen said of his defensive backfield.
Boise’s defense came out of the gates attacking in the second half. Senior linebacker Byron Hout was able to force a fumble on the first play from scrimmage in the second half, with senior defensive end Tyrone Crawford recovering the ball and taking it back 32 yards for the touchdown.
“Just got the perfect Sunday hop, took it up, took it to the end zone and just happy to put points on the board,” Crawford said.
The Broncos did a better job containing TCU in the second half and held an eight-point lead with less than seven minutes remaining in the third quarter. However, the Horned Frogs would not be put to bed, answering with a long scoring drive of their own on their next procession.
Many Bronco fans probably suspected the game to be in-hand after freshman cornerback Lee Hightower intercepted Pachall on TCU’s first drive of the fourth quarter.
“Those guys are battling, learning and competing,” Petersen said of his freshman. “That’s what it’s all about because at this point in the year, you’re not really a true freshman anymore. We’re going to need those guys to step up, keep getting better and make some more plays for us down the road.”
The game would turn when the Broncos were unable to maintain possession in the waning moments, losing a fumble with two minutes, 26 seconds remaining.
That would be more than enough time for Pachall and the Frogs to march down the field 73 yards to a touchdown with one minute, five seconds remaining.
The play of the night came when TCU decided to go for a two-point conversion. After a Bronco defender missed on an attempted interception, TCU receiver Josh Boyce hauled in the go-ahead two points that would be enough for the upset victory.
“Pachall is a good quarterback, he’s got a lot of speed,” Petersen said. “We did a nice job on the run game. They have a lot of weapons out wide and he can throw it. At the end of the game they did what they needed to do.”