BOISE, Idaho — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…September 18, 2015:
For the first time ever, three Boise State quarterbacks make their collegiate football debuts in the same game. After starter Ryan Finley was injured in the first quarter of a 52-0 victory over Idaho State, Thomas Stuart, Brett Rypien and Alex Ogle followed him. Rypien, the four-star recruit from Spokane, was the most celebrated of the bunch. Rypien completed the first four passes of his Bronco career and went 8-of-9 for 126 yards. He led touchdown drives on each of his first three possessions, and Boise State got a field goal on the fourth.
Rypien’s career, of course, took off. The following week, he got his first start and led Boise State to a 56-14 road rout of Virginia. On Halloween, Rypien threw for 469 yards and even caught a touchdown pass in a 55-27 win at UNLV. He also had a big night in one of the Broncos’ most notorious defeats, the 31-24 loss to New Mexico on the blue turf. Rypien threw for a career-high 506 yards on a school-record 75 pass attempts. Over his four-year career, Rypien amassed a Mountain West-record 13,581 passing yards and 90 touchdowns.
Finley would transfer to North Carolina State seven months later as a rare sophomore graduate transfer. Because he played in only three games in 2015, he was able to use that as a redshirt year. Finley started for three seasons with the Wolfpack, throwing for 10,501 yards and 60 touchdowns against 25 interceptions. He parlayed that into a fourth-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, going to the Cincinnati Bengals. Finley played in eight games over two seasons for Cincy, four of them starts in place of the injured Andy Dalton, throwing for 638 yards with three TDs and four interceptions.
Ogle got some mop-up snaps in the Broncos’ 55-7 rout of Northern Illinois in the 2015 Poinsettia Bowl before transferring to Arizona Western. He ended up at Division II Tusculum University in Tennessee, where he started two seasons. Stuart was solid in that 2015 debut versus ISU, going 9-of-13 for 69 yards and rushing 11 times for 46 yards. He stayed at Boise State in 2016—than transferred to FCS Duquesne, where he was 2017 Northeastern Conference Offensive Player of the Year and a Walter Payton Award finalist.
(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.)
Watch more Sports:
See KTVB sports coverage in our YouTube playlist:
HERE ARE MORE WAYS TO GET NEWS FROM KTVB:
Download the KTVB News Mobile App
Apple iOS: Click here to download
Google Play: Click here to download
Watch news reports for FREE on YouTube: KTVB YouTube channel
Stream Live for FREE on ROKU: Add the channel from the ROKU store or by searching 'KTVB'.
Stream Live for FREE on FIRE TV: Search ‘KTVB’ and click ‘Get’ to download.
