BOISE, Idaho — This Day In Sports…October 25, 2003:
“Man was that stupid,” said the Scott Slant column at the time. Visiting San Jose State stomped on the Boise State logo at midfield before the game, and the result was a 77-14 Broncos victory and a school-record for points scored. The explosion bumped the 74-0 rout of Humboldt State in 1986 off the top spot, and that was good, because that thing was an aberration. Humboldt was a terribly outmatched Division II team, and Boise State was celebrating the debut of the blue turf. The new record came in a conference game against a talented (but grossly underachieving) bunch of Spartans.
Boise State’s wide receivers and their star quarterback settled the matter early. What had become the Broncos’ “big four” wideouts, Tim Gilligan, T.J. Acree, Lawrence Bady and Jerry Smith, each caught a touchdown pass from Ryan Dinwiddie. In the second half, Dinwiddie was long-gone when Smith, a former walk-on from Nampa High, caught Jared Zabransky’s first career touchdown pass. Coincidentally, it was a 77-yarder. The final points of the day, the record-breakers, came via a rushing touchdown from Jeff Carpenter, a sophomore walk-on From Kuna.
Zabransky, of course, would go on to become the Broncos’ starter the following three seasons, capped by a certain victory in Glendale, AZ, on New Year’s Day, 2007. His final career TD pass came in that monumental Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma—on the hook-and-lateral to Drisan James and Jerard Rabb that sent the game into overtime.
Other notes on the blowout: it was the second-worst defeat in San Jose State history next to a 79-0 loss to the Stanford freshmen in 1923. And Boise State’s 77 points were the most in Division I-A in 2003, eclipsing Texas A&M’s 73 points against Baylor. The Broncos have reached 70 points only one other time as a four-year program: in a 70-35 home win over Idaho in 2005.
The 2003 team averaged 43.0 points per game. Amazingly, that mark doesn’t even crack Boise State’s all-time top 5, which tells you something about the offenses coach Dan Hawkins put together (two of his other teams are in that top 5). A year later, Hawkins’ 2004 team would set the single-season record that still stands, putting up 48.9 points per game.
(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.)
