Presented by BBSI BOISE.

This Day In Sports…January 30, 2004:

The Mountain West Conference extends—and TCU accepts—an invitation to join the league in 2005. It just over a month after the Broncos had beaten TCU in the Fort Worth Bowl and finished No. 16 in the AP Poll. It was a disappointing day for Boise State, which had hoped to be included in the Mountain West’s expansion. Commissioner Craig Thompson said the conference’s expansion talks will “at least pause, or cease,” while Boise State president Bob Kustra tried to mobilize the money it would take to make the school a viable candidate in the future. What a tangled web has been woven since.

The Scott Slant take back then: “Now that Boise State’s effort to will itself into the Mountain West with its football excellence hasn’t panned out, the quest to legitimately qualify for membership begins. And now that the conference has added TCU and shut the door behind it, there’s a tough row to hoe. The league is basically saying ‘prove it’ to any other school trying to get in now, and Boise State president Bob Kustra recognizes the Broncos’ hurdles. They start with budget, which is woefully short of the Mountain West norm—and facilities, which are lowlighted by Bronco Stadium’s Division II pressbox. (This all makes the 25-2 record of BSU football over the past two years even more phenomenal.)”

Bit by bit, Boise State addressed its issues. The Steuckle Sky Center flipped the script on that old press box when it opened in 2008. There were also two south end zone expansions, and on the field there were the first two victories in the Fiesta Bowl. And there were improvements in other sports as well. The Broncos were finally invited to join the Mountain West in June, 2010, and officially became a member in 2011. And just like that, they were courted by the Big East, which then was thought to be a pathway to BCS status. Thank goodness that didn’t work out.

In the past 10 years, Boise State has made itself available to the Big 12, to no avail. When the Pac-12 first blew up a year and a half ago, the Broncos were still on the sidelines. But Oregon State and Washington State, out of Power 4 options, quietly decided to rebuild the once-proud conference. Then came the bombshell announcement last September: Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Colorado State would join the new Pac-12 in 2026. Utah State soon followed, and later Gonzaga made the move as a non-football school. 

Athletic directors from the new Pac-12 lineup met earlier this week in San Ramon in the Bay Area, and columnist John Canzano suggests that UNLV is still in play as an addition despite committing in October to stay in the Mountain West. Not only the Rebels, but maybe even Nevada to go with them. That seems strange, as the Wolf Pack have never been on the Pac-12 radar. Canzano also threw out a possible second run at Memphis and Tulane. There’s obviously still work to be done, but however it turns out, this is the best-case scenario for the Broncos for now.

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)

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