Climbing the Mountain (West) - Idaho Press-Tribune
Boise State coach Chris Petersen has tried to give his players a bit of a history lesson, one from a decade ago, when most of the Broncos were in elementary school.
In 2001, his first season in Boise as the offensive coordinator, Petersen joined the staff as the team was entering a new conference, the Western Athletic. It didn't go terribly smooth — the Broncos went 6-2 in conference play that year.
"It didn't go as planned — I think a big part of it was facing new schemes, new venues, and there's only so much you can
do to prepare for that," Petersen said.
When the Broncos beat Utah State last December, they left the WAC with a 75-5 league record.
Today, it is a new era for Boise State football as the Broncos play their first conference game at Colorado State.
"It'll be different, without question, certainly when you go on the road," Petersen said. "… It's new, that's always a good thing. Change is good. We talked about being in a new conference, how hard that is to do well first time out of the gate and that certainly hasn't changed."
From Ruston, La., to Las Cruces, N.M., over to Honolulu and up to Moscow, Boise State covered the map just for conference games, from small college towns to metropolitan areas. Now, the Broncos will get a more efficient travel schedule, along with new venues to steal wins from the home team.
"You kind of get used to the teams in your conference, you kind of know what to expect, so it'll be exciting to get to see new teams, new campuses," linebacker J.C. Percy said.
The Broncos will get high-altitude tests at Colorado State and Wyoming, a powerful option attack from Air Force and destination sites in San Diego State and UNLV. It also means finding new rivals with Idaho off the schedule and TCU bound for the Big 12 next year.
"It's cool to break the monotony," junior linebacker Aaron Tevis said. "… We're losing Idaho, obviously, we were looking for a rivalry with TCU, but that doesn't look like that will happen."
When the Broncos accepted the invitation to the Mountain West
in June of last year, it seemed like an ideal situation — the Broncos would help the MWC get closer to an automatic BCS bid, and it would have natural rivals in TCU, BYU and Utah. All three will be gone next year, and Air Force has entered the idea of leaving. Boise State has even been mentioned as a possible Big East target.
"I still think the Mountain West is good, I really do," Petersen said. "If those other teams would have stayed it would have been unbelievable, it would have been perfect. As we know, there's no perfect situation out there. There just isn't. That's just the landscape we're in now."
The rumors of a Big East move have been just that, as the conference and Boise State both have reservations — Petersen said "people are making way too big of a deal about that."
Suffice it to say, Boise State's focus is not on the distant future, but the more immediate one — winning a conference title in its first year. In the WAC, Big West or Big Sky, the Broncos' previous conference homes, they did not win a championship in their first season.
"We see ourselves as a program that continually wants to get better and this is just another step in that direction," senior receiver Tyler Shoemaker said. "We're going to approach it just like every other year so far and try to win the thing."
It was only five years ago when the Broncos were five years into their WAC reign, had a tiny press box made of plywood, and made news any time they were ranked. Now Boise State's in a league that has produced four BCS teams, they've got the Stueckle Sky Club, a new football complex in the works and a new excitement in a continuously dominant program.
"It's great to be a part of this step," said senior defensive end Jarrell Root, a Capital High grad. "It's crazy to imagine where we were even when I got here. Being in the Mountain West is just continuing that trend. It's exciting to think where we'll be in five, 10 years."
15 Oct, 2011--
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