BOISE, Idaho – No. 10 Boise State (12-1) unofficially secured the first automatic berth in the expanded College Football Playoff with a 21-7 victory over No. 20 UNLV (10-3) in the Mountain West championship on Friday.

While the CFP field won’t be officially announced until Sunday, the Broncos were the top-ranked team in Group 5 over the weekend. The Broncos will clinch a top-four spot and an accompanying first-round bye if they win before the Winners of Saturday’s Big 12 Championship between No. 15 Arizona State and No. 16 Iowa State remain.

The top five ranked conference champions automatically receive a spot in the playoffs, ensuring that a spot goes to a team outside the Power 4.

Boise State delivered another spectacular performance from star running back Ashton Jeanty on Friday. In his final argument to Heisman voters, Jeanty ran for 209 yards, including a 75-yard touchdown run just before halftime that gave the Broncos a 21-0 lead.

In the second quarter, Jeanty passed USC’s Marcus Allen to rank fourth all-time on the FBS single-season rushing charts. He rushed for 2,497 yards and 29 touchdowns in 13 games.

UNLV shut down Boise in the second half but couldn’t pull itself out of a first-half hole. One of his best chances came in the third quarter when running back Kylin James ran 86 yards. But Broncos safety Seyi Oladipo caught James from behind at the 5-yard line and UNLV failed to score in four plays.

Friday marked Boise State’s second straight Mountain West championship and fifth since joining the conference in 2011. The team was last named top-seeded Group of 5 champion in 2014, when the Broncos went 12-2 won and then defeated Arizona in the Fiesta Bowl.

Should it secure a first-round bye, Boise State will likely begin its CFP journey on Dec. 31 in the Fiesta Bowl, site of the program’s famous victory over Oklahoma in 2007.

It’s been a remarkable 13 months for Boise State, which was 5-5 last season when AD Jeremiah Dickey fired head coach Andy Avalos on Nov. 13 and promoted defensive coordinator Spencer Danielson to interim head coach. The Broncos won their next two games and reached the Mountain West Championship Game, winning at UNLV 44-20. Danielson was named full-time head coach.

This season, the Broncos lost 37-34 at then-seventh-ranked Oregon in Week 2 and never faltered after that, reaching 12 wins for the first time since 2019. They won 29-24 at UNLV in their first match on October 25th.

UNLV won 10 games this season for the first time since 1984. The Rebels will likely end their season on December 18th in the LA Bowl.

(Photo: Loren Orr/Getty Images)