BOISE, Idaho — This Day In Sports…October 14, 2007:
It is to this day the most exciting game in Bronco Stadium history. Nobody who saw it—in person or on ESPN—will argue. Boise State beat Nevada 69-67 in quadruple overtime, then the highest scoring game since Division I-A started keeping official records in 1937. At the time, ESPN plugged in some Sunday night college games, and this was one of them. In fact, it was the second one in a row on the blue turf. But 30,394 fans filled the place nevertheless and had to stay up way past their bedtimes. They went to a football game, and a basketball game broke out.
It was Colin Kaepernick’s first start for the Wolf Pack, and it started innocently enough. The game was tied 7-7 at the end of the first quarter. The Broncos took a 28-14 second-quarter lead, helped by Ian Johnson’s career-high 72-yard touchdown run, but the draws and bootlegs coach Chris Ault’s Nevada staff drew up for Kaepernick started to take root. The Pack blasted back as the teams exchanged blows into the fourth quarter. Nevada led 44-41 as time wound down at the end of regulation, but Kyle Brotzman hit a pressure-packed 27-yard field goal on the final play to send it into overtime.
The first two OTs were a blur. One play, one touchdown. One play, one touchdown. One play, one touchdown. Two plays, touchdown. Each team continued answering the other into the fourth OT. Two games for the price of one. It was then that Johnson scored a go-ahead touchdown and Taylor Tharp hit Jeremy Avery for the required two-point conversion for a 69-67 lead. The Wolf Pack scored in the bottom half of the fourth overtime, but Broncos linebacker and Bishop Kelly grad Tim Brady sacked Kaepernick on the ensuing two-point try to end the game and ignite a wild celebration—on the field and in the stands.
Kaepernick was just 11-of-26 through the air, but he threw for 243 yards and three touchdowns. And there was this: Kaepernick added 177 rushing yards to Luke Lippincott’s 187. Was that a peak into the future, or what? On Coach Pete’s side, Johnson ran for 205 yards and had what would be the only TD reception of his career, and Tharp passed for 320 yards and four TDs against one interception. Nevada, which went turnover-free, rolled up 639 yards of total offense, and Boise State, which didn’t give up a single sack, put up 627. I’m exhausted just writing this.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
