Homecoming

Boise State’s spot in the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl offered a homecoming for Broncos safety Jeremy Ioane. Then again, it’s been about a year since home came to him in Idaho. The Punahou graduate will be back on familiar turf when he returns to Aloha Stadium for the Christmas Eve matchup against Oregon State. But he’s had the year-round comfort of being surrounded by family since his parents and siblings moved to Boise.

"For a college student to be able go home and have home-cooked meals, it’s nice," Ioane said.

Ioane will have a sizeable cheering section when the Broncos (8-4) close the season in the Hawaii Bowl against the Beavers (6-6) –a pairing that, in a sense, presented Ioane the best of both worlds.

As the Broncos approached the end of the regular season, their bowl options narrowed to either the Hawaii Bowl or the New Mexico Bowl. Ioane said when the Broncos took an initial vote, the prospect of playing a Pac-12 team in New Mexico drew support from much of the team.

"I didn’t want to vote because everyone knew where I wanted to go," Ioane said.

When the bowl matchups were announced after some shuffling of conference tie-ins, the Broncos got both the trip to Hawaii and the chance to end the season against an opponent from the Pac-12.

"I called everyone back home and let everyone know I was coming," said Ioane, whose family ordered 144 tickets for the game through the Boise State ticket office.

Ioane was a member of Punahou’s first state championship team in 2008 and made his first college appearance at Aloha Stadium in Boise State’s 49-14 Mountain West Conference win over Hawaii last year. He returns as a second-team all-conference safety after posting 49 tackles in his junior season.

"Jeremy is a very smart football player and he has very good instincts and spatial awareness and leveraging the ball and being in position to make plays," Boise State defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski said.

"Maturity-wise, unbelievable. The guy’s on it. He’s had some bumps in the road being a young guy moving from Hawaii to Boise, but he persevered, he stuck through it and he’s reaping the benefits now."

Ioane’s career in Boise generated its considerable forward momentum once he got comfortable running backward. A first-team All-State linebacker his senior year at Punahou, Ioane made the adjustment to safety after joining the Broncos.

"When I first made that transition it was a big change," Ioane said. "Linebacker is just lateral, side-to-side and running downhill. The biggest thing was learning how to backpedal."

Following a redshirt year in 2010, Ioane started in Boise State’s season opener at Georgia as a freshman. He settled into a reserve role for much of that season, then entrenched himself with the first unit last year in starting all 13 games and earning honorable mention all-conference honors. He was second on the team with 70 tackles and intercepted three passes as a sophomore, returning one for a touchdown against Michigan State.

As redshirt juniors, Ioane and cornerback Bryan Douglas are the senior members of a secondary that starts sophomores Darian Thompson at safety and Donte Deayon at corner.

"Jeremy’s taken a lot of leadership," said Deayon, who leads the team with five interceptions and nine pass break-ups. "He’s stepped up into that role, he knows the defense, so if we have any questions about it we can go to him."

They’ll close the season by facing one of the nation’s top passing offenses. Oregon State enters the game first in the Pac-12 and third in the FBS in passing offense with 382.1 yards per game.

Brandin Cooks, this year’s Biletnikoff Award recipient as the nation’s top receiver, leads the nation with 1,670 yards. Beavers quarterback Sean Mannion completed 66 percent of his passes for 4,403 yards — good for second nationally — and 36 touchdowns.

"(Cooks is) a great player and someone we have to respect out there,"Ioane said. "We just have to go out there and play."