Boise State Broncos College Football Pregame Quote, 12/29/2024

DENISE SEOMIN: I would like to welcome Boise State Head Coach Spencer Danielson to the stage. As you know, the Broncos join us after securing their sixth Mountain West Conference championship, earning a bye in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl CFP Quarterfinal on New Year’s Eve.

COACH DANIELSON: Good morning, guys. So, appreciate everybody’s time. So thankful for everybody being here. And thank you, Jesus, for another day of life. I give Him all the glory.

Our team is fired up to be here. Just like everything, every team starts their offseason in January about goals and what they want to do, and then you got to get to work.

If you focus too much on the end result and not on the process, it’s never going to never happen. I’m so proud of our team taking it one day at a time. I believe what you do in the dark will come to light.

I’m proud of our team and how they have earned every opportunity. They have earned the right to play in this amazing game. Boise State has been here before. It’s been a decade since we have been back here. And just proud of our team, earned the right to get back here.

I appreciate everybody’s time. And our team is excited, our staff is excited. And we are ready to go to work and put the ball down on Tuesday night.

Q. James Franklin was up here talking about watching you guys on tape. You guys deserve to be here. He gave so much credit to you and your staff and your players for how well you guys played this season. Watching them on film, common opponent obviously Oregon, and your most recent tape, what is your analysis of that Penn State team?

COACH DANIELSON: Absolutely. Penn State, first off, extremely well-coached. I have a ton of respect for James Franklin, what he’s done this year and what he’s done for years at Penn State even prior. In all three phases very well-coached.

They have got great personnel too. They have done a great job recruiting. They have done a great job developing as well, guys that came in as freshmen kept getting better year in and year out.

Across all three phases, extremely well-coached, very talented. It’s a team that does play together. They play complementary football, good defense, explosive offense. They find a way to change the game on special teams.

You see the teams they play and you don’t see one game where it’s not that way. They are a resilient group in all three phases, well-coached, great personnel. We know we are going to get their absolute best on Tuesday night.

Q. James Franklin said that this is a business trip. And that’s how they are coordinating it, that’s how they are executing it. I’m sure you have some similar thoughts on that. How is your execution going of that, of keeping this ‚Äì this is not a bowl game per se where this is the last game you are playing. You win, you keep this thing going.

COACH DANIELSON: Absolutely, Johnny. I talked to our team yesterday when we had our team meeting, we arrived in Arizona, and I said: Starve distractions, feed your focus. That’s what we all have to do, me included.

My wife came down, our daughter Eleanor who is 4, my daughter Rosalie is 2 1/2, and they don’t care about this game. All right? They are excited for the pool.

That’s a lot of our players, all their families are coming. A lot of people are coming down for the excitement. Our party is when we put the ball down at 5:30 Tuesday night. Boys, that’s when we party, is at that time. It’s all about starving our distractions, feeding our focus.

But I still want our guys to enjoy these moments. I want them to enjoy the time together, all the things that is created by the Fiesta Bowl. It’s an amazing experience. Even getting off the plane yesterday was awesome for our guys.

We are here for a reason. We have worked our tails off from January to now. Starve distractions; feed your focus on everything.

It’s also staying in routine. I’m a huge “process over perfection.” For our coaches, yeah, we just moved our whole routine from Boise, Idaho, to Arizona. But making sure the same things we did to win the games that got us here, we’ve got to stay on that same track and find a way to always do it better.

Q. Coach, you have a veteran roster; but Penn State has guys that have played in the Rose Bowl and bigger games. You guys don’t leave any details unturned. So have you worked with these guys on the mental part of making sure that they handle the stage well, especially maybe in the first 15 minutes of this football game?

COACH DANIELSON: Yes, we have to start fast. You see for our team, this is just college football in general. A lot of that comes into how we prep. And that’s why on Tuesday night, there’s not going to be a lot of talking from me. It’s, Hey, boys, go cut it loose, because you’ve earned the right to go play your best on how you’ve prepped.

Yes, they have got guys on their roster that have played in a lot, quote,unquote, big games. We have been in playoff football since game one. So we have played in 13 big games that everybody said: If you lose this one, if you lose this one, if you lose this one, nothing is going to happen for you.

Our guys have been in that mentality for four months, or whatever it is. So we’re staying true to that.

Just like anything, how can we do it better this week, Mike? How can we have our best -today is a Thursday for us. How can we have our best Thursday practice, because that’s- what we control.

We control how we prep and then when we put the ball down on Tuesday night, I’m going to go cut it loose, boys. Trust your training. We don’t need anybody to go out there and be Superman because the lights are brighter because it’s the Fiesta Bowl. Go cut loose. Trust your training. I believe our best is enough, but our best is required.

Q. Obviously, it’s a really historic game considering it’s the first time that the Playoff Quarterfinal has been at the Fiesta Bowl. How important is it for these guys who maybe haven’t experienced this kind of playoff atmosphere to be able to get those reps in on Thursday?

COACH DANIELSON: Yes, it is going to be huge for our whole organization, our whole team. We have been working for this all season. And I believe -and I’m kind of saying the same -thing -it’s- all about our process.

It doesn’t matter how many fans are there, who is watching on TV. We all know how big this game is on both sides, for Penn State and Boise State. We have been here before as a university. It’s been 10 years, like I talked about, but we have never been in a playoff game.

This is a first time and in January, with a group of our seniors and juniors and sophomores and freshmen that said: Hey, I’m not transferring. I’m staying right here. I want to do something that’s never been done. I want to leave a legacy at Boise State that has never been done. And now fast forward a year, about, and we’re right there on the cusp of those things.

But don’t make the moment too big. Once again, put the ball down. We’re playing football. It’s going to come down to fundamentals, techniques, all the things that we have worked to this point, because it is going to be. Everyone is telling them how big this game is, but we have been in a lot of big games.

Maybe there’s less fans, maybe there’s less people watching on TV. But it was still a huge game for our program, and our guys have found a way to win.

Q. Coach, you have had an incredible journey in your last year. You took over as head coach late towards the end of the season. Could you just describe in your own words of your own journey of how far you have come in just your overall words?

COACH DANIELSON: First off, God is so good. We serve a champion. Thank you, Jesus. That’s the only reason why I’m here. People might not like that I say that, or they do. It doesn’t really matter to me. It’s all about being a light and having an impact.

I know that’s the reason I’m the head coach at Boise State, is to develop people. Because at the end of the day, 10 years from now, people are going to forget about what happens in these games. It’s about the impact for these young men when they are husbands and fathers.

And seeing this group of guys, some of our guys will go on to play in the NFL. Some of them after this postseason is over, football will be done for them; but their life is not over. Life is not about mountain-top experiences. It’s about the journey. It’s about the climb.

And so even for myself, being the interim, winning the Mountain West championship, being so blessed to be the head coach here, and then watching this group of young men and staff just go to work.

On Tuesday, our winter training is on THE BLUE in the snow. Very different than the weather we’re all walking around in today. And our guys just went to work. No one was around taking pictures. No one was videoing. Our guys just went to work.

When you stack those days, you earn opportunities like you have on Tuesday night.

And so just so proud of our guys, so proud of our staff with where college football is. Even the past month, there’s a lot of things pulling at our players, our staff, everything. Our guys have stayed focused, stayed locked in. Similar to your question, Mike.

I’m proud of our guys on this journey. I’m just blessed to be a part of it. This is nothing I’m doing. I’m not that smart. I’m not that cool. I promise you. I’m just so proud of our staff and our players.

Q. “Please count us out.” You have unintentionally created a motto, I think. Did you plan to say those words at that press conference? And then how did it come to life on a shirt and eventually 100 or so shirts were delivered, it sounds like, to your players?

COACH DANIELSON: Definitely didn’t plan on it becoming a shirt. I can promise you that, Jay.

That’s what I believe in, and that’s what Boise State has been built on. The first Fiesta Bowl in 2007 where the country, me included as a high school senior, watching Boise State Broncos beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl counted out. And that’s what draws people to Boise State.

I talked to our staff and our players. I said: Everybody in this room, me included, has been counted out at some point in their life. At some point in football, someone said: You can’t do this. And then you say, you know what? I am going to prove you wrong right now, and you work your tail off to earn the right to do it.

That’s what our team is. That doesn’t mean it directly correlates to always winning the football games you want to win. We have been counted out before. We have been counted out as a program. We have been counted out in games this year, and you thrive in that.

Once again, outside noise, doesn’t matter. It’s not going to affect our work. And if you want to count Boise State Broncos out, you can; but we are going to continue to work. And that’s why I tell people: You can count us out. But I promise you, when you put the ball down on Tuesday night, our boys will be ready.

Q. Coach, talking to you guys in Boise earlier this week, Ashton Jeanty said he appreciated the 24 days off says he feels fresher than he has ever been. Dirk [Koetter] says the time off scares him. When it comes to the rhythm and balance of this offense, where do you sit?

COACH DANIELSON: It’s got both sides. You win the championship game, you get the bye, and you have more time. The positive is rest, recovery, because we played 13 dog fights to find our way to the Fiesta Bowl.

But there is also staying in rhythm as an offense, rhythm as a defense, rhythm on special teams, because we haven’t had the game-like reps in a while. It’s both sides. Both sides there’s pros and cons to either one.

I’m proud of how our guys have continued to be able to practice, even prior to us even knowing who we were playing in this game. We are game planning Penn State. We’re game planning SMU. We are self-scouting ourselves to grow in a lot of the things that we had done as well as we wanted to at that point.

So, it’s one of those things you always work for. We have done more good on goods. Our starting defense versus our starting offense than we had prior to in season to get those game-like reps.

We are finding ways to make sure we get those. I’m proud of where our guys are at from a rest/recovery standpoint. But our guys have worked, too. This wasn’t sit around and eat vitamin C and feel good. We were working. Our guys were battling. We were living in the training room, because you have to.

The only way to play the way you want to is you have to do it in practice. It’s not just the walkthroughs. The mental reps are pivotal, but you have got to do it in practice. We did a lot of good on good to make sure we kept the game-like reps.

Q. Back to the “count us out” question. When you talk about a burden of proof basically, fair-on-fair for the entire Group of Five, how much pressure do you feel not just for your program but for every Group of Five school out there to show people watching not only did we earn our spot here but we can win these games? How important is that to represent, basically, all the Group of Five at this level?

COACH DANIELSON: Yes, great question. When the College Football Playoff expanded to 12 teams, it gives everybody a shot. Now, you have to earn the right to get to the playoff, earn the right to play in these games. But it gives all FBS teams a shot, that you go win your games, you give yourself a shot to go play in these playoffs.

That’s what it did for our team starting in January, when we knew, hey, in the 2024 season, this is expanded. We all have an opportunity to play in the playoff, just like everybody else.

Now, getting here, the “please count us out,” we represent a lot of people ‚Äì I think you represent a lot of teams that have been counted out, that think: Oh, it’s going to be these are the teams that everybody wants to play in the playoff or the media is going to say deserve to be in the playoffs. And our guys just went out and played. Counted out, won games. Counted out, won games. And they have earned the right to be here.

The pressure regards to how it relates to the Group of Five teams and the college football landscape, not so much of a burden we carry.

But I do believe in when someone is counted out, how they show up when the ball is put down does echo through the entire college football landscape for years to come. That does matter to me, because I believe in giving everybody a chance, giving everybody a shot. You’ve got to go do it as a coach.

So, this game, there’s a lot riding on it. For us, it is going to be about playing this football game and earn the right to play our best. The outside forces that are going to be effective from what happens in this game, we’ll cross that bridge after.

But I do believe in this setup. I do believe in the College Football Playoff, because, once again, it gives everybody a shot. If you want to count out the Broncos, please do.