Spencer Danielson stresses importance of rest Ashton Jeanty has received

Ashton Jeanty had one of the most memorable seasons a running back has had in recent memory for the Boise State Broncos. Part of that success has come from his willingness to be a workhorse for the Broncos this season.

Since Boise State earned a first round bye in the College Football Playoff, the Broncos have had more than three weeks to both prepare for their playoff game as well as get as rested as possible for the quarterfinal round. As head coach Spencer Danielson explained, he knows getting rest for Jeanty is important, but there’s a balance to everything.

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“Ashton Jeanty is a warrior,” Danielson said. “So, even on the 13-game run, how he lived in the training room how he was able to not only play in the games where the nation was watching with the amount of carries and yards and violent hits he took, he was also doing the same thing in practice, grinding to go play his best. Just like anything, for him and his whole team, being able to have these couple of weeks to get fresh, get healthy, has been huge.”

This season, Jeanty carried the ball 344 times for 2,497 yards and 29 touchdowns. That was more than 50 rushing attempts more than the next running back in all of college football. He also had 20 receptions for 116 yards and another touchdown.

“But we have been on the practice field. I am a firm believer in practice performance. We are not going out there walking through. We have to grow and improve as a team. We have a lot of things through 13 games that we did well. There’s still a lot of things through 13 games we have not done well, that we have to fix, we have to have better answers schematically. We have to improve these fundamentals and techniques and that’s across the board,” Danielson said.

“It is a fine balance. Obviously not playing a game decreases a lot of the violence and the physical shots our guys have been taking. But our guys have been practicing. We know the opponent we will see here in eight days and we know they will be ready and it’s our job to make sure we are, too.”

Boise State is scheduled to play Penn State at the Fiesta Bowl on December 31st, New Year’s Eve, at 7:30 p.m. EST. The winner is going to advance to the semifinals of the College Football Playoff as one of the final four teams standing.