College Football Coach Hire Grades: Boise State

Boise State Broncos: Spencer Danielson

Why the job was open: Boise State considers itself to be the premier job in the Mountain West and as a result they expect to content for conference championships regularly. The Andy Avalos era wasn’t a smooth one to say the least. They played for a Mountain West championship in his 2nd season but that didn’t come without a disheartening 1-3 start. Last season expectations were high but instead Boise State struggled to a 4-5 start, which included some blown leads and a wild hail mary loss to Colorado State. For some reason Avalos got one more game before being fired after a win over New Mexico, but it was apparent a change was needed to get the program back to the top.

Coach Profile: Spencer Danielson spent most of his coaching career on the Boise State staff, since 2017 to be exact. When Avalos was let go, Danielson got the opportunity to lead the program and he made the most of it. He rallied the Broncos to win their last 2 regular season games and thanks to chaos elsewhere in the MWC they made the conference championship. Boise State made the most of it, winning a fun and wild game over UNLV for the Mountain West Championship. Only took 3 games to get a championship trophy, not bad! Danielson earned the job full time as a result.

Why he will succeed: Danielson has been here a long time and knows the program. That’s the first step. Boise State is a name brand at this point, has a history of basically nothing but winning and they have the most support in the conference. Boise State football is the only show in town in a growing city and the fans are passionate. Danielson proved to be a very good coach during his time as the interim. They could have ran through the motions the rest of the way and got out of the season but won the Mountain West instead. He has an opportunity to start fast with a loaded roster returning along with some impact transfers.

What obstacles are in the way of success: There’s high expectations, is Danielson ready to live up to those? Sure he was able to when he had nothing to lose, but how’s it going to go when the gig is fully his? We’ve seen this before where interim coach has success, gets promoted and loses the momentum. Danielson’s challenge will be to not follow in that category. He will face a test off the bat on hiring a new OC after losing his just weeks ago, Avalos struck out on his hirings a lot so Danielson needs to avoid that mistake.

Grade: B – This grade is about the highest I can give for the route Boise State took. I’m very weary of hiring the interim coach because they happened to rally. Did it work because he was simply a new voice atop? That being said, I really like the moves he’s made on the recruiting trail this offseason and he’s brought a good energy to the program. There weren’t any truly proven choices out there so specific to this case I don’t mind the one the Broncos program took.