Ferd Lewis: Boise State football still searching for greener pastures

Big, bad Boise State this month might well hoist high another Mountain West Conference football championship trophy, the Broncos’ third in four years.

But increasingly, not all is well in the 12-member league that includes Hawaii, where the 4-1 (4-0 conference) Broncos feel increasingly marooned and held back from achieving even greater glory on the blue turf.

The latest reminder of the displeasure with their surroundings comes, again, from their head football coach, Bryan Harsin, who three months ago beseeched Boise State officials to find the Broncos another place to play more worthy of their standing.

“I am 1,000% convinced we need to make this move for football, and if that means other sports, too, in the long run it will be what’s best for the university,” Harsin said in a September email that was obtained by the Idaho Press and other outlets in the state this week.

While the email was written during a period in which Harsin was frustrated with the MWC’s unwillingness to charge full-speed ahead into the COVID-19 impacted football season, it was but the latest in a list of beefs the coach and the Broncos have had with the conference they have called home — and not a few since 2011.

Last December Harsin lampooned the league at a press conference for not doing enough in his eyes to help the Broncos secure a New Year’s Six bowl game.

A month after that Boise State filed suit against the MWC over the intended distribution of the new TV rights package that would have short-changed the school on a $1.8 million side deal above and beyond what the other schools in the conference get.

The so-called “carve-out” deal was signed in 2012 when Boise State agreed to return to the MWC after its plans to flee had to be revised due to the break up of their intended home, the Big East.

The Broncos had been so far out the door that they had already agreed to park their other teams in the WAC.

Despite being jilted, the MWC was obliged to take back Boise State because the Broncos were — and remain — the conference’s most marketable football team and biggest driver of viewership. Without Boise State, the MWC doesn’t get nearly the $260 million deal over seven years it signed with Fox and the CBS Sports Network in January or the visibility.

But as much as Boise State in general and Harsin in particular groan about the Mountain West and its commissioner, Craig Thompson, the Broncos have few immediate options.

The nearest Power Five conferences, the Pac-12 and Big 12, aren’t looking to expand anytime soon. And, even if they did it is doubtful Boise State would be atop their list. Four years ago the Big 12 chose not to take Boise State when it mulled expansion.

The best of the non-Power Five conferences, the American Athletic Conference, has had an opening for more than a year but hasn’t chased Boise State.

Prompted by Harsin’s email, Boise State officials talked to at least two conferences, the email replies indicate, but apparently got no offers.

That leaves going independent and Brigham Young’s plight this season underlines the potential perils in that.

So, like it or not — and Harsin and the Broncos clearly don’t — Boise State is stuck in the MWC for the foreseeable future, a place where their trophy count and frustration figure to mount.

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