No. 20 Boise State needed a backup quarterback to save its season opener from embarrassment, and he delivered in a hurry. Max Cutforth came off the bench for injured starter Maddux Madsen and threw three touchdown passes in the final seven minutes, lifting the Broncos to a 46-45 win over Texas State on Saturday night after Boise State had let a 25-point halftime lead slip almost entirely away.
That's the Boise State Broncos injury news that matters this morning: Madsen was hurt, Cutforth finished the job, and nobody outside the building yet knows how serious the injury is or how long it keeps him out.
Let's start with how a ranked team gets into a spot like this at all. Boise State built a 25-point cushion by halftime, the kind of lead that usually just gets managed out. Then Texas State, a Sun Belt team picked apart by most of the country entering the week, scored and scored and scored, and suddenly a laugher was a one-score game deep into the fourth quarter. Whatever happened to Madsen clearly happened somewhere in that stretch, because it was Cutforth finishing this one, not the guy who started it.
what happened to Maddux Madsen
The available reporting is thin on specifics, just that Madsen was injured and didn't finish the game. No word yet on the nature of the injury or a timeline. That's the honest state of it this morning: Boise State has a banged-up starting quarterback and a backup who just authored one of the more dramatic relief stints you'll see in a Week 9 box score.
Cutforth's seven minutes were the whole story. Three touchdown passes, from a cold seat, with a 25-point lead already gone and a Sun Belt opponent playing with nothing to lose. That's not garbage time production. That's a backup quarterback standing in the pocket with the season's goodwill on the line and delivering three times in a row.
why this one almost got away from Boise State
Texas State isn't walking into November with much buzz, which makes the second half that much more notable. A team that trailed by 25 points at the break found a way to make a ranked opponent sweat every inch of the final possession. Whatever Boise State's defense did in the first thirty minutes, it didn't carry into the second half, and that's a problem the coaching staff will be correcting on film this week regardless of who's healthy at quarterback.
For Boise State, the immediate story isn't the win total, it's the depth chart. A Group of Five program with ranked ambitions just found out, in real time, whether its backup quarterback can be trusted in a live, high-pressure fourth quarter. The answer on Saturday night was yes. Now the staff has to figure out whether Madsen's health forces that question to stay answered for more than one week.
Texas State, for its part, leaves with the kind of near-miss that tends to get remembered longer than most wins, a 25-point deficit nearly erased against a ranked opponent on the road. That's a building block, even in the box score of a loss.
What I'm watching next: Madsen's practice status and any word on the severity of the injury, because that answer decides whether Cutforth's seven minutes were a one-week story or the start of a bigger one.
