Boise State’s leading receiver leaves team ahead of transfer portal opening

Boise State’s leading receiver Eric McAlister is transferring.

The redshirt sophomore can’t make it official until the transfer portal opens on Dec. 4, but Boise State football coach Andy Avalos said Monday that McAlister decided to leave the team now.

“Eric McAlister has chosen to no longer compete as a member of our program,” Avalos said in a prepared statement. “We wish him the best in the future and our focus remains on our next game.”

Avalos didn’t come out Monday and say coaches from another team poached his leading receiver, but he made it clear that he believes someone has been meddling with his roster.

“It’s a part of college football right now, to go into the transfer portal, and there are teams enticing people to do such things,” Avalos said. “It’s the nature of the beast when you’ve got a guy who is approaching 1,000 yards over the course of a season and walks out because of other opportunities.”

Avalos said Boise State needs to be more competitive in the name, image and likeness landscape to not only help the program grow, but help retain its top players. The NIL rules the NCAA adopted in 2021 allow players to monetize their name and image through endorsements and advertisements.

Boise State players have signed NIL deals that include leasing a pickup truck, including quarterback Taylen Green and tight end Riley Smith, but the Broncos aren’t seeing the kind of lavish deals being landed by players in Power Five conferences. A deal backed by Utah’s Crimson Collective paid for all 85 scholarship players on the roster to lease a pickup truck for a year.

“The NIL space is going to need to take care of Boise State,” Avalos said. “That’s just the nature of college football.”

McAlister certainly didn’t leave Boise State because of a lack of playing time.

He was targeted 19 times Saturday in the Broncos’ 37-30 loss at Fresno State and finished the game with eight catches for 85 yards.

The native of Azle, Texas, has posted three 100-yard receiving games this year, including a career-high 170 yards against San Jose State. He leads Boise State with 47 catches for 873 yards and five touchdowns. He hauled in four touchdowns in limited snaps last season.

Boise State offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said the timing of McAlister’s decision is the hardest thing for him to accept. The Broncos still have three games left in the regular season, including a home game against Mountain West foe New Mexico on Saturday (8 p.m., FS1). The Broncos are going to need to win out and get help to make the conference championship game, but they haven’t been mathematically eliminated.

They still need two wins to become bowl eligible.

“My heart hurts,” Hamdan said Monday. “Nobody is more proud of what Eric has accomplished than me. We’re talking about a guy who is up for the Biletnikoff (Award) and he’s about 120 yards away from a 1,000-yard season, and those kind of seasons don’t come often.”

McAlister’s absence leaves a huge hole for the Broncos to fill. Boise State’s next-leading receiver is actually running back Ashton Jeanty, who has 30 catches for 296 yards this season. Wide receiver Stef Cobbs has 23 catches for 241 yards, and sixth-year senior Billy Bowens has 16 catches for 234 yards. Cobbs’ status for Saturday’s game is unknown after he left the Broncos’ win at Fresno State with an apparent leg injury.

McAlister was, by far, the Broncos’ top deep threat. He’s averaging 18.57 yards per catch, which ranks No. 22 in the country. He ranked No. 10 in the nation, averaging 20.21 yards a catch, heading into the Fresno State game. The Broncos are now left to find a new receiver that can stretch the field vertically.

The top options may be freshman Prince Strachan, who caught the first touchdown pass of his career two weeks ago against Wyoming, and redshirt junior Austin Bolt, who just recently returned to the field after suffering a broken leg in Boise State’s 2022 season opener at Oregon State. He caught the first pass of his career against Fresno State.