Boise State Texas State delivered one of the wildest finishes of the college football season on Saturday night, as No. 20 Boise State rallied from a stunning second-half collapse to beat Texas State 46-45 at home. Backup quarterback Max Cutforth, thrown into the game after starter Maddux Madsen left with a left knee injury, threw three touchdown passes in the final seven minutes to rescue a night that had slipped away from the Broncos.
The Boise State Texas State result keeps the Broncos unbeaten in Pac-12 play and preserves a season that, for long stretches of the second half, looked headed for a famous upset. Texas State scored the first 36 points after halftime, turning a 25-point deficit into a 39-28 lead with 8:58 remaining, before Cutforth led a comeback sealed by Akeem Wright's 18-yard touchdown catch with 2:40 left.
Boise State controlled the first half behind Madsen, who threw for a touchdown and ran for two more scores as the Broncos built a lead of 25 points by the break. Nothing in the opening two quarters suggested what was coming. Then the second half belonged entirely to Texas State, whose offence found a rhythm Boise State could not stop and whose defence began to force the mistakes that had been absent all night.
The Bobcats' surge reached its peak with 8:58 left in the fourth quarter, when Jayden Bradley returned Madsen's first interception of the season for a touchdown, giving Texas State a 39-28 lead. It was a remarkable turnaround: 36 unanswered second-half points, a road crowd silenced, and a ranked team staring at a defeat that would have reshaped its season.
Then Madsen went down. After releasing a 22-yard completion to Akeem Wright, Madsen took a hard hit near his left knee from Texas State's Jo'Laison Landry with 8:19 remaining. He reached for the knee immediately, was attended by trainers, and walked off the field before later being spotted on the sideline with a large ice bag on the knee and then on crutches. Cutforth entered with the Broncos trailing by 11 and the season suddenly in his hands.
Cutforth answered with one of the great relief performances of the season. He completed 8 of 13 passes for 131 yards and three touchdowns in barely seven minutes of game time, including a 9-yard scoring pass to Jones that cut the deficit to 39-34 with 6:15 to play. The decisive blow came with 2:40 remaining, when Cutforth found Wright for an 18-yard touchdown that put Boise State ahead 46-45. The Broncos held on from there, surviving a fourth quarter in which the two teams combined for 38 points.
Madsen, a three-year starter, had been the steady centre of Boise State's season before Saturday night. He finished the game 24 of 33 for 236 yards and one touchdown through the air, plus two rushing scores, and his first interception of the entire season could hardly have come at a worse moment, returned for a touchdown that gave Texas State its first lead of the night. That the Broncos won anyway says as much about their depth at quarterback as about their resilience.
The victory moves Boise State to 7-1 overall and 4-0 in the Pac-12, keeping the Broncos firmly in the conference race and in the wider conversation about the College Football Playoff picture. Texas State falls to 4-4 overall and 2-2 in conference play, left to wonder how a 36-point second-half run and a lead with under nine minutes to play did not produce one of the biggest wins in programme history.
Comebacks of this shape are rare because they require two collapses at once: one team must surrender a huge lead, and the other must then surrender a lead of its own. Boise State managed both in the same night, blowing its 25-point halftime advantage before snatching the game back in the final minutes. Games like this tend to define seasons, either as the night a team showed its character or as the warning that its margin for error has disappeared.
Cutforth's numbers only partly capture what he did. Entering cold in the fourth quarter of a game his team was losing, he played with a calm that belied the circumstances, moving the Broncos quickly down the field again and again. His three touchdown passes in the final seven minutes turned a 39-28 deficit into a 46-45 lead, and his 8-of-13, 131-yard line came almost entirely in crunch time.
The sequence also underlined the value of preparation for a backup quarterback. Cutforth had watched Madsen run the offence all season, and when his moment arrived with 8:19 left, he did not need time to settle in. The 9-yard touchdown to Jones brought Boise State within five points and re-energised a stadium that had gone quiet; the 18-yard strike to Wright, with 2:40 left, finished the job. Between those scores, the Broncos' offence looked nothing like the unit that had been shut out for the entire second half until then.
For Texas State, the defeat will sting precisely because the Bobcats did almost everything required to win. They erased a 25-point deficit, scored 36 straight points, took the lead on a defensive touchdown, and still led with under three minutes to play. But college football games are not decided on the balance of play across four quarters; they are decided on the scoreboard at the final whistle, and on Saturday night that scoreboard read 46-45 to the home team.
The reporting from Boise on Saturday night centred on two images: Madsen on the sideline, ice bag on his knee and later on crutches, watching his replacement save the game; and Cutforth, who had spent the season waiting, delivering when it mattered most. No update on the severity of Madsen's knee injury was available in the immediate post-game reporting, and that uncertainty now hangs over everything Boise State does next.
Associated Press reporting of the game described the finish in terms that needed little embellishment: a 25-point halftime lead blown, a 36-point second-half run by the visitors, and then three touchdown passes in seven minutes from a backup. Field Level Media's injury report added the detail that Madsen was hurt on the play immediately after his 22-yard completion to Wright, when Landry crashed into him — the kind of detail that will be replayed by Boise State fans for years if the Broncos' season ends somewhere special.
For Boise State, the win matters first because it keeps the season alive. At 7-1 and 4-0 in the Pac-12, the Broncos remain in control of their conference destiny, and a loss to an unranked Texas State team at home would have been the kind of result that lingers in every selection-committee discussion for the rest of the year. Instead, the Broncos carry a comeback story into November, and comeback stories have a way of building belief inside a locker room.
It matters second because of what it reveals about the quarterback room. If Madsen's injury keeps him out, Boise State now knows its backup can win a game in the fourth quarter against a conference opponent. If Madsen returns quickly, the Broncos have a starter who knows his team can win without him. Either way, Saturday night answered a question every contender eventually faces: what happens when the starter goes down?
For Texas State, the loss matters as a measure of how close the programme is to a breakthrough. The Bobcats went into a ranked team's stadium, fell behind by 25, and still came within three minutes of winning. That is not a moral victory — coaches rightly hate the phrase — but it is evidence that the gap between Texas State and the top of its conference is closing, even if the scoreboard did not reward the effort this time.
The immediate question for Boise State is Madsen's knee. The team will assess the injury in the coming days, and until there is an official update, Cutforth should be expected to take the first-team repetitions in practice. A short absence and a long absence would mean very different Novembers for the Broncos, and the next injury report will be watched as closely as any game result.
On the field, Boise State's task is to learn from the second half without letting it define the team. A 25-point lead disappeared because Texas State scored 36 unanswered points; the Broncos' defence, so solid in the first half, will face hard questions about adjustments and composure in the week ahead. Texas State, meanwhile, must recover from a defeat that will be difficult to shake off, and find a way to turn a performance of that quality into a win next time out.
What was the final score of Boise State vs Texas State? No. 20 Boise State beat Texas State 46-45 on Saturday, October 31, 2026, in Boise, Idaho.
What happened to Maddux Madsen? Madsen left in the fourth quarter with a left knee injury after taking a hit from Jo'Laison Landry with 8:19 remaining. He was later seen on the sideline on crutches with an ice bag on the knee.
Who replaced Madsen at quarterback? Backup Max Cutforth, who completed 8 of 13 passes for 131 yards and three touchdowns in the final seven minutes.
How did Texas State take the lead? The Bobcats scored the first 36 points of the second half, going ahead 39-28 with 8:58 left when Jayden Bradley returned Madsen's first interception of the season for a touchdown.
What are the teams' records now? Boise State improved to 7-1 overall and 4-0 in the Pac-12; Texas State fell to 4-4 overall and 2-2 in conference play.
Related coverage: Wembanyama drops 43 as Spurs beat Timberwolves 121-111, WNBA Finals Game 7: Dream beat Valkyries 80-69 and World Series Game 5: Brewers one win from first title.
Sources: Associated Press game report, October 31, 2026; Field Level Media injury report, November 1, 2026. The featured image is an illustrative photograph of a Boise State quarterback on the team's blue turf.
Leave a Comment
| Today's Date:
