Ferd Lewis: Boise State had the most to lose without MWC’s return to football

To understand one of the prime movers in the Mountain West Conference’s push to bring back football this past week you need only look at whose brand had the most to lose by not playing this fall.

That would be Boise State.

Far more than just being the defending champion and the innovators of an iconic blue turf, the Broncos have long been the biggest revenue-driver and the national face of the far-flung MWC.

A face that hasn’t been all that happy of one of late.

In December at 12-1 after beating Hawaii in the conference championship game, the Broncos were passed over for the $4 million New Year’s Six Cotton Bowl slot. Instead, College Football Playoff selection committee chose another 12-1 team, Memphis of the American Athletic Conference.

That did not sit well with head coach Bryan Harsin or the Bronco faithful. “When things like this season are happening, you’d sure like to see our university and our conference do the most they can to help put us in a position at the end of the year if everything else has been taken care of,” Harsin lamented at a December news conference.

Then, a month later, Boise State filed suit against the MWC claiming the conference was attempting to cut the Broncos out of a long-running $1.8 million side deal in the media rights contract.

Boise State, which had announced a move to the Big East in 2012 along with San Diego State, agreed to return months later when the Big East was morphing into a basketball-only league and the MWC sweetened the deal with an offer to let the Broncos’ home TV games be marketed separately with the income retained by the school.

Amid the legal skirmishes this winter, things were contentious enough that there were wide rumors the rival and more accomplished AAC was lobbying the Broncos to jump ship and bring a couple of others (Air Force, San Diego State and, perhaps, Colorado State) along with them to form a western wing of the AAC.

Then, COVID-19 hit in March and machinations halted. But while the pandemic put an immediate hold on movement it has also forced schools reeling with mounting virus-induced debt to begin contemplation of where the greener pastures and bigger paydays might be a couple of years down the road and how to better position themselves.

That’s where the 2020 season looms large as a stage for the Broncos, who were, far and away, the preseason favorite to win the league for a third time in four years. Boise State needs to get back into a NY6 picture now dominated by the AAC and the Broncos weren’t going to to get an opportunity to burnish their bonfides sitting on the sidelines if the Mountain West folded its tent in the fall.

The Broncos were not alone in wanting to get back on the field, of course, and could hardly drive the conference there by themselves. But when testing situations improved, deficits mounted around the league and the Big Ten and Pac-12 signalled moves toward a return, the Broncos had their opening.

Along with having the most riding on what the conference chose to do, the Broncos had an urgency to act and, no doubt, some leverage to apply and it would be hard to blame them.

Which is why nobody should be too surprised the conference is willing to entertain the possibility of Boise State playing a nonconference game against Brigham Young while everybody else but Air Force plays a conference-only slate. Or, that choosing teams for the championship game could be decided on overall winning percentage and, in a departure from West vs. Mountain format, they might come from the same division.

If you are the Broncos, this is the season you couldn’t let get away.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.