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Boise State never had a chance against Oregon State in the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve, and lost 38-23. Nothing went right for the Broncos as their offense was has not been this inept since they lost to Washington all the way back in Week 1.
In the first half, the offense for Boise State did nothing at all to move the ball outside a pair decent length drives that resulted in a pair of field goal, and the other encouraging drive ended on a failed fourth down attempt.
There were two key plays on the offense that really changed the game and that came from a pair of defensive touchdowns by Oregon State's Rashaad Reynolds. The first was a 3-yard scoop and score and it was set up because right tackle Rees Odhiambowas allowed Oregon State's defensive end Scott Crichton to easily get past him to sack and strip the ball from Grant Hedrick.
The other defensive score for Oregon State came when wide receiver Troy Ware lost the ball and Reynolds picked it up and ran it back 70 yards. That second defensive score for Oregon State put them up 23-6 and put the game out of reach for Boise State.
Boise State did step up in the second half to be able to move the ball some and they did manage to make the final score to a somewhat reasonable 15-point deficit, but it was too little to late.
The offense playing poorly could have been a result of not having Chris Petersen on the sideline for the first time in any of the players career, and the transition was not as smoothed as interim coach Bob Gregory had hoped for. Or it could have been that the players were in Hawaii for a vacation and it took them a half of football to actually show up as a team.
Regardless of what happened it is not a good sign for the 2014 season, or it could be nothing since their new head coach Bryan Harsin will be changing things up, hopefully for the better.
The two players that did perform well were quarterback Grant Hedrick who rebounded from a poor first half to complete 32 of 44 passes for 382 yards and a touchdown; wide receiver Matt Miller had a great game with 11 receptions for 206 yards including an 85-yard touchdown reception.
