Boise State's victory also win for WAC.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

BOISE - If you'd been here, in the middle of Bronco Stadium, with a near-record crowd of 30,711 screaming themselves as blue as the blue turf, here amid the hype of the game that somehow wasn't just Boise State against Oregon State, but the underdog Western Athletic Conference against the privileged Pac-10, you'd have thought something profoundly significant happened here Thursday night.

And on one level, certainly, it did.

The Broncos, the banner of the WAC thrust into their hands, dismantled the Beavers, 42-14. It was just their second victory ever against a Pac-10 school, and it came after WAC teams were on an 0-21 streak against teams from the Bowl Championship Series conferences dating to the beginning of last season.

As the Broncos heard, from anyone with a column or a microphone, until the WAC started winning games like this one and like Fresno State's game against the University of Oregon on Saturday night, it will be hard-pressed to make a case for a berth in a BCS bowl game.

So the game was about more than Boise State, it was about this community, as giddy with excitement as Eugene will be when Oklahoma comes visiting next week, and about the WAC's continual quest for credibility.

And it was vitally important for Boise State to win here Thursday night, behind the incredible performance of sophomore running back Ian Johnson, who rushed for 240 yards and five touchdowns.

It was huge for the school and the league and meaningful, too, for the new Boise State coaching regime, first-year head coach Chris Petersen, the former Oregon assistant coach, and young defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox, the former Oregon defensive back.

And yet, when the Broncos fell behind 14-0, there was no panic, and the calmest guy in the middle of this strange night - the air filled with smoke from nearby wildfires, the wind whipping from the eastern foothills, the flashes of lightning in the night sky - was Petersen, described by Wilcox as "mellow," and as "the same guy you knew at Oregon 10 years ago."

There was "nothing said" when the Broncos fell behind early, and not much more said, really, after the Broncos came back to win it.

"You got to eat this elephant one bite at a time," Petersen said. "If we start putting the cart before the horse, and all those corny coaching sayings that I always say. ... This is just game two. It was nice. Those kids were up, they were ready to go. They were probably too ready; that's why we stumbled early on.

"But it's just game two."

It was a game, Petersen said, that he'd been thinking about for a while, but more scientifically than emotionally.

"I've been looking forward to this game for a while, because I knew it would be an interesting game," he said. "I didn't know how it would turn out, and I didn't know what exactly would happen, but I knew we'd go through some adversity, I knew some weird things would happen, and I've been looking forward to seeing how those kids would respond, and they responded awesome."

Wilcox echoed that. He made some adjustments in his defensive front after Oregon State's first drive, but nothing major; he'd designed his game plan to stop the run, to force the Beavers into passing situations, and ultimately his players made that work.

"It's all those guys," he said. "Those guys played their guts out."

And the Beavers should have expected that, but you wonder whether they truly knew how important this game was to the Broncos; you wonder whether the Ducks, at Fresno State on Saturday evening, will appreciate how important that game will be to the Bulldogs, and just how physical they'll be.

"We don't get worried about what other people are saying," Johnson said. "They don't respect us. We know people don't respect us. But you know, we respected them, and we came out with our all, and we knew they were going to put up points. But coach said, `If you guys put up points too, and keep hitting them, keep hitting them, they will break.' '

The Beavers did break, and they left here looking broken; it wasn't a shock that Boise State won - the Broncos were favored by eight points - but it was shocking that the Beavers tackled so poorly, that Johnson could run away from Pac-10 defensive backs, that the Beavers could mount only one scoring drive.

This wasn't a loss, it was a thrashing.

"When they came out for warmups, they were talking so much," Johnson said. "And I was like, `Come on, guys, we haven't even started the game yet,' telling us how crappy the city is, how crappy the blue field is.

"We were sitting in the locker room saying, `Don't play their game, just come out and show them with our game.' '

The Broncos showed them.

"We just control what we can control," Petersen said. "I think it's awesome for the WAC, I really do. Hopefully Fresno State can do some things this week. ... If a few people can knock someone off, it gives our conference more credibility. But we can't worry about what Fresno State does, and San Jose State and all those guys, we just try to take care of our business."

The Broncos took care of business, and Oregon State. If they were stock certificates, you'd invest in the blue-chip team from the blue-turf field, and you'd have dumped OSU stock before the Beavers arrived back in Corvallis.