Posted by Jerry Hinnen

It wasn't even two weeks ago that no less an authority than Boise State president Bob Kustra said it was "too late" for the Broncos to consider moving to the Big East for the 2012 season. But with West Virginia now officially out the Big East door, Broncos officials admitted Wednesday that the school is in active talks with the league about joining this fall after all--and actively searching for the money that would make it happen.

Bronco athletic director Mark Coyle told the Idaho Statesman that though the final amount to get Boise out of the Mountain West and into the Big East -- and the WAC, where the Broncos' Olympic sports teams are headed -- "changes by the minute," there is "a sense of urgency" for the school to reach a decision soon.

“With the departure of West Virginia, it’s created this talk about somebody jumping to the Big East. We have had those conversations, but it’s not a simple black and white answer,” Coyle said. “Yes, we want to make sure that football has a solid home, but we have to have a solid home for our 18 other sports ...  Before we make any move, we need to make sure we cover all our expenses."

Those expenses are estimated to be between $7.5 and $9 million in exit fees due the Mountain West, and possibly an entry fee due the WAC to accommodate the Olympic teams on short notice. But just as West Virginia's exit has created a hole in the Big East schedule that the Broncos could fill, so the Broncos' future league could re-route the $10 million the Mountaineers are paying in their own exit fees -- or the potential $9 million in revenues the league plans on withholding from WVU -- to the MWC or WAC to help grease the skids for Boise's arrival.

Despite the potential hiccups, with Boise interested in speeding up their arrival, the Big East desperate to avoid a season with only seven football teams (just ask Syracuse and Rutgers) and the necessary cash hypothetically available, it will now be a surprise if the Broncos don't make the leap this offseason. One potential monkey wrench, however: the Mountain West-Conference USA merger, which could in turn destabilize the reeling WAC and leave the Bronco Olympic sports high and dry. Coyle called the merger a "new twist in the conversation."

But as the expansion experience of the Mountaineers (as well as schools like Missouri) have shown, where there's a will to expedite the conference-jumping process, there's usually a way. That the Broncos now publicly have the former and a game-plan for the latter, it's not hard to imagine them going from "too late" to "already there" in a matter of weeks.

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Posted by Jerry Hinnen

Boise State announced last December that its impending move to the Big East wouldn't take place until 2013. But with West Virginia still caught in limbo between its old league and its leap to the Big 12, the San Jose Mercury-News's Jon Wilner reported this week that the Broncos might still be considering an offer to step directly into the Mountaineers' scheduling shoes should WVU extricate itself in time for the 2012 season.

Boise president Bob Kustra told the Idaho Statesman Friday that he had "heard those rumors." But he stated firmly that any move for this coming season is already off the table.

"It's too late. I can't imagine how anyone can pull that off," he said. "We would never want to pull it off in a fashion that dealt shabbily with our existing partners in the Mountain West. I don't think that could ever work."

If the Mountaineers succeeded in joining the Big 12 by this fall -- and with a 10-team schedule already released to the conference's television partners, the expectation both in the Big 12 offices and Morgantown is that they will -- the Big East will be set to play out the 2012 season with just seven members: Cincinnati, South Florida, UConn, Rutgers, Louisville, Syracuse and Pitt. (The Orange and Panthers have both announced their intentions to join the ACC and are scheduled to leave in 2014, but both could look to leave next year if the Mountaineers are successful in their attempt to bolt early.)

Once 2013 hits, the Big East will receive a substantial boost in the form of five new members, the Broncos included. But for 2012, facing the ugly prospect of just six conference games and a matter of weeks in which to find a nonconference replacement for the Mountaineers, it's understandable if John Marinatto would like to see BSU make a last-gasp switch. Unfortunately for him, it seems like Kustra and the Broncos aren't in quite such a hurry.

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Posted by Jerry Hinnen

As reported by CBSSports.com's Brett McMurphy Wednesday, Big East officials have pushed west to Boise State and Air Force in an effort to find the new members that would keep their endangered football league afloat.

Boise president Bob Kustra has now released a statement confirming those meetings and that Big East commissioner John Marinatto had offered a "presentation" on "what role Boise State could potentially play" in the league's expansion efforts. (In plain speak: Marinatto asked them to come aboard.)

Here's Kustra's statement in full:

“We had an informative meeting today with officials from the Big East Conference. Commissioner John Marinatto made a presentation regarding possible ideas for conference expansion and what role Boise State could potentially play in those plans. We appreciate the outreach on the part of the Big East Conference and will continue our due diligence in this matter.

“As we have indicated consistently, we will take our time in evaluating conference affiliation options and we will make an informed decision representing the best interests of the university. Boise State is a quality institution with an elite football program and a significant national brand identity. As a result, we are an extremely valuable partner when it comes to conference affiliation."

Where the Big East is concerned, we doubt anyone would argue with that last assumption.

Posted by Tom Fornelli

Earlier this week it was announced that Boise State would not be allowed to wear all blue uniforms during home games on the school's blue turf now that it was a member of the Mountain West. As you'd expect, this decision didn't go over very well with a lot of Boise State fans, as they've felt that wearing all blue on a blue turf helps the team because it works as a sort of camouflage.

A theory I've never understood all that much because last I checked, you play football on a field at the same eye-level as your opponent, not from a blimp flying above the field. Sure, maybe the blue on blue made watching game film a bit annoying at times for opposing coaches, but on the field I don't see how it could have an impact.

Still, the Mountain West asked Boise State to abandon the practice, and being the new kid on the block, Boise State agreed. Though if you were to listen to Boise AD Bob Kustra talk about it, the school might not have made the same decision if it were joining the Mountain West now.

"One thing I think people have to understand is the Mountain West we were going to had TCU, BYU and the University of Utah sitting at the table," Kustra told the Idaho Statesman. "And when I first met with TCU’s, BYU’s and Utah’s presidents, it was a pretty inspiring moment. I knew I was sitting with the top dogs of that conference.

“When they come to you and give you a bottom line, a year ago, we didn’t have a lot of elbow room. There really wasn’t much give. If that same conversation were to take place this year, I’ll guarantee you we wouldn’t be talking about no blue uniforms on the blue turf unless somebody decides how to keep green uniforms off the turf in Fort Collins and any place else where there is such.

“People tend to forget it was a different context in which this decision had to be made and we had literally minutes in which to make it in. They were clearly doing their vote.”

In other words, Boise State didn't feel as if it were the big dog at the table last year when Utah, TCU and BYU were still around. Now that those schools are gone or on the way out, Boise State would have had a bit more of that "we'll do what we want because you really need us at the moment" leverage.

Either way, no matter the timing, this is a bit too much fuss over the color of a uniform to ever have.

Posted by Adam Jacobi

As pointed out by CBSSports.com's Jerry Palm yesterday, the final BCS rankings contained a serious error in one of the computer rankings, one that directly affected the standings. Dennis Dodd correctly noted that it was pretty much luck that A: this error didn't affect a BCS bowl pairing itself (or, heaven forbid, the BCS Championship Game itself), and that B: the error was even caught in the first place, since the other five computer rankings don't release their calculations to anybody.

Those are viewpoints shared by Boise State president Bob Kustra, who has been critical of the BCS system's existence for years, and who saw his team directly affected by this error. Here's a letter Kustra sent to various school presidents and college athletics administrators today expressing further dissatisfaction with the BCS, published by the Idaho Statesman :

I trust that you have heard about the news from CBS sports analyst Jerry Palm that the BCS rankings erroneously ranked the positions of four teams in the final BCS rankings of the season.

The BCS has corrected for it and Bill Hancock has apologized, but it still leaves open the question of transparency. There are five other computer models used to determine the rankings each week that are hidden from public view, unlike the approach used by Wes Colley who allows the light of day to shine on his work.  Thankfully, in this case an astute third party caught the error and brought it to the attention of the BCS.  I’m sure that you can imagine numerous “what if” scenarios where this type of mistake could have had significant repercussions.

How many times have we heard calls for transparency on our campuses and how many times have we shared our governance and communicated with our faculties and other constituencies in a transparent fashion?  Yet, in intercollegiate athletics, with the NCAA standing silently on the sidelines, we allow the BCS to work its magic with no idea of how accurate its rankings are on a week to week basis.  

It's egregious enough to see teams with mediocre seasons climb into the BCS bowl games because they happen to be in privileged conferences, while others with better records are written off as second-class citizens.   When we cannot see how these decisions are made, it becomes an affront to the concepts of integrity and fair play that we claim to value. 

When C. Wright Mills wrote of the "power elite", I doubt he was speaking of universities and intercollegiate athletics.  If he were still around, there could be a great second edition, this time focused on where elitism really runs rampant and takes Division 1 football players from some conferences and restrains their ability to compete.  I hope you noticed my choice of the word, "restrain".  I trust we will all be hearing more about "restraint" unless presidents step up and do the right thing.

C. Wright Mills? Now there's a reference that should get people firing up Wikipedia. But Kustra is right: the near-complete lack of transparency on the part of the NCAA and BCS on this matter means that there is no assurance that non-AQ schools will ever be on the same level playing field as BCS-conference schools when it comes to playing for a national championship ... or for the $17 million that comes from one BCS bowl berth these days.

Whether Kustra will find allies in automatic qualifier conferences to help take up his cause is debatable; it's not exactly in those schools' best interests to give up any portion of the concentrated monetary power they currently enjoy, after all, and the institutionalized disadvantages Boise State and its fellow non-AQ schools face ensure that barring a sea change, those BCS-conference schools will never be forced to cede that power. "Sorry," they'll say, "but we're just more qualified for the postseason than you schools are. And we've got the computer rankings to prove it."

Posted by Jerry Hinnen

Boise State writers and fans want to know : why exactly is the TCU team that's virtually identical to the TCU team that lost to a Boise team that virtually identical to this year's Boise team in last year's Fiesta Bowl so widely considered to be better of the two teams? If the Broncos were better then, why are the Frogs better now?

It's a valid question. One answer, the simplest one, is that TCU owns both the better strength-of-schedule to date and the bigger win; as dominant as Boise has been and as valuable as a win over likely ACC champions Virginia Tech should prove to be, no win in the country is as impressive as TCU's dismantling of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Then again, part of the answer might also be that like it or not, in the minds of many poll voters Boise comes across as the mor e "mid-major" of the two mid-major programs. The Broncos are tucked away in one of the most remote parts of the continental U.S., while TCU is located in the middle of Texas in one of the nation's largest metro areas; the Broncos wear loud bright blue and orange uniforms and play on the notorious (and notoriously unique) blue turf while TCU stays with a muted purple-and-black color scheme; the Broncos play in a league where the biggest challengers are outsiders like Nevada , Hawaii , and Fresno State , whereas the Frogs get a former national champion in BYU and a team in Utah that has two BCS bowl wins this decade; Boise occasionally plays Tuesday night games against the likes of Louisiana Tech ; etc.

It's not fair --- it's not even close to fair -- but to say for certain those kinds of stereotypes don't have any effect on the perception of the two programs is to give poll voters the benefit of an awful lot of doubt. So it's no wonder that Boise is aggressively working to change that, first with their jump to the Mountain West and now with expansion and renovation plans for 33,500-seat Bronco Stadium :

 

Longtime Boise State donors Larry and Marianne Williams and Jerry and Muriel Caven have pledged a total of $5 million toward Bronco Stadium expansion — money that is earmarked to build the new football complex on the north end.

The football complex, 5,000 seats and the completion of Dona Larsen Park — where the track will be relocated — represent Phase I of the stadium master plan.

"We are at a significant disadvantage in supporting a nationally ranked team with half the number of seats to raise the revenue to pay for the program and thereby forcing us to raise ticket prices too often," Boise State president Bob Kustra said in a press release.

It's no secret that money is what makes the world of big-time college football go round as often as not; when Kustra cites the need to "pay for the program," he's not just talking about shoulder pads and cleats, he's discussing the need to pay for coach Chris Petersen , a larger recruiting budget, staff raises -- all the things that go into making a football program every bit as successful away from the field as the Broncos already are on it.

It will take more than a "stadium master plan" to erase all the skepticism regarding Boise (or even to hold on to Petersen if one of the sport's true heavyweights comes calling). But Broncos have to happy to have the school and its donors making the effort all the same.

 

Posted by Tom Fornelli

While it's not exactly the type of rivalry that is constantly mentioned amongst the great rivalries of college football, in the state of Idaho, people take the annual meeting between Boise State and Idaho rather seriously.  Though, to be fair, it's not as much of a rivalry these days as it is Boise State pounding Idaho into submission every year while maintaining its role as BCS-busting darling of the masses.  More than anything, it seems that Idaho has a bit of the little brother syndrome.

When Boise State gets its own airplane, Idaho wants its own airplane.   Things like that.  Still, Idaho doesn't take too kindly to Boise State talking down to it, like Boise president Bob Kustra said earlier this year that Idaho's fan base was "nasty, inebriated."  Idaho running back Deonte Jackson remembers those words, though he also likes to consider the source.

“Personally, I tried not to read too much into it,” Jackson told the Idaho Statesman. “But I wouldn’t expect anything different coming from the blue and orange snot. I just took it and use it as fuel in the fire and feed my hunger to want to get after these guys to finish my career off with a win against them and bring pride back to this community, the University of Idaho and Moscow.”

Wait, they dye their boogers at Boise State too?  Come on, let's show some dignity and self-restraint here, Broncos.

Jackson didn't just rip on Boise's president, though, after he got his shot in he went on to lavish the actual football team with praise.  After all, knocking off the Broncos will be hard enough, giving Boise's players any extra motivation probably wouldn't serve Jackson or the Vandals all that well.

Though, if you're waiting for Boise players to respond to Jackson's comments about their president, don't hold your breath.  Chris Petersen has his players off-limits to the media this week hence they say something inflammatory about Idaho.