October 5, 1996, 30 years ago today: Boise State plays only its third game ever against a Pac-10 school—against Arizona State in Sun Devil Stadium. The Broncos scored first on a touchdown pass from Tony Hilde to Andre Horace, but the Sun Devils then put up eight unanswered touchdowns in a 56-7 ASU win. Boise State had struggled to a 1-4 record to that point in its inaugural FBS season, as coach Pokey Allen was on leave while getting alternative cancer treatment, and Tom Mason was trying to keep things together as interim coach.
It was a wrenching year for Boise State, which finished 2-10, by far its worst record in history. Many of the freshmen pressed into service for the Broncos that season (including the Arizona State game) would be seniors in 1999 when the Broncos’ Golden Era began. They persevered through Allen s death at the end of 1996 and the sudden departure of Houston Nutt a year later. As for Arizona State, the Sun Devils were in the midst of their last Rose Bowl season. They would be undefeated until falling to Ohio State in Pasadena on New Year’s Day, 1997.
It was a bad year to be facing Arizona State senior quarterback Jake Plummer, the former Capital Eagle, who played just the first half in the middle of his Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year season. “Jake the Snake” went 10-of-15 for 203 yards and two touchdowns against his hometown team. Plummer won a state A-1 (now 6A) championship at Capital in 1991, and the quarterback who succeeded him with the Eagles, future Boise State coach Bryan Harsin, got into the game in the fourth quarter. Harsin, a redshirt freshman, went 2-for-3 for nine yards.
Little-remembered fact: the late Pat Tillman had a 16-yard pick-six in the third quarter to make it 49-7. Tillman was a junior and was close friends with Plummer. While Jake was drafted in the second round of the 1997 NFL Draft by the Arizona Cardinals, Tillman was taken in the seventh round by the Cards the following year, reuniting the duo. They both played all 16 games for Arizona in 1998 when the franchise broke a 51-year playoff drought. Tillman famously turned down a contract extension with the Cardinals in 2001 to enlist in the U.S. Army following 9/11, and he was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004.
(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.)
