What Wyoming coach said about Boise State, Ashton Jeanty

Wyoming head coach Jay Sawvel had high praise for No. 12 Boise State during his weekly press conference. 

“This is probably the best Mountain West team that I’ve seen in the five years I’ve been in this conference,” Sawvel said of the Broncos (9-1, 6-0), who travel Wyoming (2-8, 2-4) this Saturday. 

“It’s a big challenge when you’re playing a team that’s on track to play in the playoff. They’re very well-rounded. They’ve got experience on defense, and they’re productive and opportunistic on that side of the ball. And then obviously Ashton Jeanty, who is kind of ridiculous. … We’re obviously going to have to play our best game we’ve played all year defensively to hang in with them.”

The Cowboys are coming off a 24-10 road loss to Colorado State. 

Here are the highlights from Sawvel’s press conference. 

On Boise State’s offense

“There’s a large model of what they do that is what we want to become. When you look at the blueprint in a sense, nobody is going to have Ashton Jeanty, I get that … but there’s a lot of things foundationally to what they do that is like ‘OK, this is what we want to look like.’”

On Boise State’s balance

“(Ashton Jeanty), great player there. But to be honest with you — he’s amazing and he deserves the credit that he gets, Heisman consideration and those types of things — but the quarterback, Maddux Madsen, really makes them go. Because … you can load the box on everybody run-game wise, but his accuracy and what (offensive coordinator) Dirk Koetter does with him offensively creates a balance for them that makes them that much harder to defend.”

On maintaining eye discipline, spying Madsen

“You’ve got to do your job and you’ve got to have your eyes in the right spot. That’s something that’s foundational to anything defensively. But if you start looking around too much in the run, (Madsen) is a very good quarterback. They’ve got good skill that opens things up. Just his movement, his ability to move. He’s a hard guy to sack. He’s got 19 touchdowns and three interceptions, so there’s an accuracy there that’s important, too.”

On ‘getting up’ to play Ashton Jeanty

“Well, let’s be careful a little bit about that. There’s a guy from San Diego State that chirped a lot about Ashton Jeanty, and that didn’t work out very good. So look, anytime there are good players on the field, I think players want to play good when there are other good players on the field.”