All the vacant orange and blue seats in the Aloha Stadium lower bowl made No. 24 Boise State feel right at home.
The Broncos’ high-powered offense fired on all cylinders as the visitors trounced Hawaii 52-16 on Saturday, keeping them in the hunt for their customary berth in the Mountain West championship game.
Behind the explosive legs of junior running back Jeremy McNichols and the accurate arm of sophomore quarterback Brett Rypien, BSU rolled up season highs in points and total offensive yards (603).
Boise extended its mastery over Hawaii to six straight games by refusing to overlook its overmatched opponent.
“Winning is hard, but it never gets old,” said McNichols, who ran for 153 yards on 16 carries and found the end zone twice. “Coming on the road to get a win, it’s hard going anywhere.”
He entered the game as the country’s top scorer with 20 touchdowns, and his 46 over the past two years tops any FBS player. He extended his run of games with a touchdown to 22, another FBS-best streak.
The Broncos (9-1, 5-1 MWC) scored touchdowns on five of six first-half possessions to put away UH (4-7, 3-4) early and silence the Rainbow Warriors’ share of the announced crowd of 18,286.
“I think by the scoreboard you could say that (it was one of our most complete games),” BSU coach Bryan Harsin said. “How efficient our quarterback played and (we) were able to get a couple receivers over 100 yards. We won the turnover battle. So yeah, a lot of what we were looking for happened today.”
BSU is considered a run-first team, but UH had no answer for the pass, either. Rypien was 18-for-22 for 338 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. Decorated receivers Cedrick Wilson and Thomas Sperbeck combined for 255 yards receiving and three scores.
“We get our 1-on-1 opportunities on the edges because we’ve been having so much success running the ball; it makes my job so much easier,” Rypien said.
McNichols said getting to the outside early was important against UH’s box-stacking. BSU expected more quarterback pressure than UH applied, he added. Rypien was sacked once.
Rypien was aided by the knowledge of quarterbacks coach Zak Hill, who spent 48 days on Nick Rolovich’s staff in the offseason before being lured away by the Broncos.
“He’s a big addition to our production on offense this year,” Harsin said. BSU declined to make Hill available for comment after the game.
Boise State, the winningest program in the country since 2000 (185-33), is contending for another berth in the Mountain West championship game out of the Mountain Division. They suffered a costly 30-28 loss against Wyoming on Oct. 29, but have taken care of business since.
Meanwhile, Wyoming stumbled in triple-overtime against UNLV on Saturday, 69-66, a fact the Broncos learned in the fourth quarter, by which time all their seniors had taken a seat in favor of their backups. They still need Wyoming to drop another game if it comes down to a head-to-head tiebreaker at the end of the regular season.
