Why Boise Was Noisy

Boise State put a 24-14 licking on Wyoming (check out the video above for an example), but Cowboy coach Joe Glenn said the Broncos had help.

Glenn said Boise State officials piped in crowd noise through the speaker system in the first half, and that noise contributed to Wyoming having trouble getting plays called in from the sideline and communicating before the snap.

"I'm going to say something, and it didn’t cost us the game, but they were pumping crowd noise into the speakers in the first half," Glenn said. "Our coaches could hear it, and they turned it off in the second half, but that’s not right."

Glenn added: "You don’t do that stuff. It's against the law, against the rules, trying to gain an unfair advantage. But that didn’t cost us the game. The real crowd was good enough, they didn’t need to add to it."

Brad Larrondo, Boise State's senior assistant athletic director for promotions and marketing, told the Idaho Statesman that Wyoming complained at halftime about the horse and stampede sound that Boise State plays before third downs.

Larrondo told the paper that teams are allowed to play the sounds until a team breaks its huddle. But the Cowboys rarely huddled, often going to the line of scrimmage and getting their play from the sideline.

Wyoming had two procedure penalties, one on third down, in the first half and was forced to use a timeout as the play clock was winding down. The Cowboys also had an illegal substitution and miscommunicated regularly in the passing game.

Said Wyoming quarterback Karsten Sween: "It just took us a little while to get some of the plays. They were playing good, and obviously it was very loud so communicating the plays was kind of tough in the first half, so we had to get away from some of our stuff.

"I know I was struggling to get the plays off and trying to get the play called with all the noise. This was a very loud stadium."