San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
San Jose State tops Boise State in MWC title game
After winning an outright conference title for the first time since 1990, after improving to 70 for the first time since 1939 and after beating Boise State for the first time in 15 tries, the Mountain West Conference champion San Jose State Spartans leaned on a Bill Withers song in the locker room to celebrate their achievements.
“The best moment of the night for me was our whole team and all of our coaches and staff in there and our athletic director ( Marie Tuite) singing ‘ Lean on Me,’ ” head coach Brent Brennan said in his postgame Zoom news conference. “It was absolutely magic.” The 25thranked Spartans didn’t need any sleight of hand in their 3420 thumping of the Broncos ( 52) in the Mountain West championship game at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas on Saturday.
San Jose State did not trail. The Spartans owned a 498233 edge in total yards and a 2613 advantage in first downs.
Now, back to the postgame chorus.
“That celebration was everything,” quarterback Nick Starkel said. “It was a culmination of this whole season. We sang ‘ Lean on Me’ in that locker room together because that’s how this team played. We lean on each other.
“I’m just speechless.” Starkel’s numbers were awfully close to jawdropping. The grad transfer, who had been at Texas A& M and Arkansas, went 32for52 for 453 yards and three touchdowns, a 55yarder to Tre Walker in the first quarter, a 30yarder to Isaiah Hamilton early in the fourth quarter and 1yarder to Derrick Deese Jr. with 3: 48 remaining that just about clinched the victory.
As impressive as Starkel was, the Spartans’ defense might have been better.
“I thought our defense was lights out,” Brennan said. “I can’t get over our defense.”
The Spartans limited Boise State to one offensive touchdown. The Broncos gained all of 12 yards on the ground.
San Jose State defensive lineman Cade Hall, the Mountain West’s Defensive Player of the Year, sacked Hank Bachmeier on consecutive plays in the first quarter and dropped Khalil Shakir for a 4yard loss on 3rd and 7 early in the third.
“It’s an amazing feeling, man,” Hall said about the Spartans becoming Mountain West champs. “It’s amazing in the locker room, and it’s just that much sweeter because of everything we’ve been through and because no one thought we could do it.”
San Jose State hadn’t put together a winning season since 2012, and the 1990 conference title came when the Spartans were in the Big West.
Santa Clara County’s restrictions in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus forced the Spartans to spend 12 days training at Humboldt State in early October.
Then on Nov. 28, the day the Spartans were returning from Boise because their scheduled game had been canceled because of virus issues in the Broncos’ program, Santa Clara County instituted a temporary ban on contact sports. That forced the Spartans to move their Dec. 5 home game to Hawaii ( they prevailed 3524) and then spend the next two weeks in the Las Vegas area.
“This team has been resilient the entire time,” Starkel said.
The Spartans are scheduled to return to the Bay Area on Sunday morning. They will face a Mid-American Conference team in the Arizona Bowl on New Year’s Eve.
“I couldn’t be more proud of this football team,” Brennan said. “I couldn’t be more excited about what this team has done. We’re going to enjoy this.”
Briefly: The Spartans’ Matt Mercurio kicked four field goals in the second quarter: 24, 36, 26 and 32 yards. … All of San Jose State’s wins this season have come by double digits. … Boise State’s Avery Williams, the conference’s Special Teams Player of the Year, returned a punt 69 yards for a touchdown. He has nine career specialteams TDs. … The Broncos had won 14 consecutive Mountain West games, including their 3110 victory over Hawaii in last year’s MWC title game. … Walker and Deese each had seven receptions, Walker for 137 yards, Deese for 76.