The "Underdog" Boise State Broncos

Boise State President Bob Kustra is getting his wish. Boise State’s “Campus Master Plan,” (which includes hundreds of millions of dollars for the construction of new academic buildings, residence halls and an additional hundred million for a renovated football stadium) is well under way.

Academically, Boise State is as progressive as they come. They don’t embrace tradition, largely because there is no tradition to embrace. Boise State was a junior college into the 1960s, and began awarding four-year and graduate degrees less than 50 years ago.

The only tradition that Boise State has ever had is that of their unbelievably successful football program. And that tradition was manufactured brilliantly to help the campus expand.

Fair weather sports fans won’t always know Boise State for their on-field success (although that too is changing rapidly). But everyone knows Boise State for their blue turf.

Since the 1980s, Boise State has played on an all blue field that has become rather iconic in college football. The field was in fact so polarizing that it even attracted its own postseason bowl game.

But as Boise State entered the new millennium, the color of the field moved to second in the discussion line behind the athletes playing on it. And this was step one of Kustra’s plan.

When Kustra took over as president, the Broncos joined the Western Athletic Conference, increasing both their exposure and competition. Boise State then brought in Head Coach Dan Hawkins, who had an incredibly successful run in D-III. That year, Hawkins made Chris Petersen his offensive coordinator.

As an underdog both as an institution and a football team, Boise State began pulling in All-American caliber recruits, and their zany offense began producing serious results on the field. After Hawkins parlayed Boise State’s success into a higher paying job at Colorado, Chris Petersen was then handed the reins. Then, Boise State went from capable underdog to perennial powerhouse.

While the Broncos have been (and will continue to be) criticized for their strength of schedule (or lack thereof), there is no other team in the country that has consistently beaten higher ranked opponents the way Boise State has. In the last 10 years, the Broncos have lost only nine games.

But while the on-field success is certainly nice for a school’s prestige, it is only a small component of what Kustra was looking for. According to financial reports submitted to the US Department of Education, Boise State is one of about 25 schools in the country with an athletic department that doesn’t operate out of a deficit.

Without even including donations from alumni and contributions from boosters, Boise State self-reported earning more than $14 million in football related revenues last season.

It’s certainly not Ohio State’s $60 million, but it’s also mind-numbing when considering the context. With no tradition and no previous success to speak of, Boise State has developed a football program that generates more than 75 percent of their entire athletic department’s revenue, which makes every other mid-major’s accomplishments look meager in comparison.

The team has become the biggest attraction in Idaho, essentially assuming the role of the Green Bay Packers of college football. They just broke ground to expand their stadium to nearly 60,000 seats, but have less than 20,000 enrolled students. They compete with some of the most prestigious universities in the country, despite not even being a top 1,000 rated university.

And the school is now dropping hundreds of millions of dollars in renovation fees, when they weren’t even an accredited university until the Woodstock era. Boise’s success will never be duplicated by any mid-major athletic department, no matter how many hundreds of athletic directors try (and if Ohio’s $19 million athletic deficit is any indication, they’re trying).

Bob Kustra wanted a football program that would get his up-and-coming university national attention; and he got what he wanted. Unfortunately, he got everything else that came with it.

Boise State’s program has become so big that, much like other big programs, it has become nearly impossible to control. There are boosters everywhere, and not everyone knows the rules. Worse yet, the sanctioning bodies of the NCAA are made up of representatives from schools that view themselves to be superior to Boise State (wink wink, nudge nudge, Miami and Ohio State). This essentially means that Boise State will not get away with anything.

Boise State’s violations have all been secondary (less severe) violations. But there is a limit to how often you can use the “it wasn’t a big deal” defense. Sixty-plus secondary violations has to equate to a major violation, and in this case it did.

Boise State has lost a few scholarships and a few practices. But more importantly, they’ve been put on notice because of the NCAA’s favorite four-word phrase: lack of institutional control.

A superhero’s uncle once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Bob Kustra wanted power. And regardless of who was running the athletic department, Kustra signed off on the major decisions that put Boise State on the map. After all, he was hired literally to put Boise State on the map for the first time.

But now, football is turning a corner. The presidents of prestigious academic schools are firing back against big time football. Ohio State fired Jim Tressel due to a lack of institutional control, and UNC’s fired Butch Davis before the tabloids could create their headlines about UNC’s antics.

As schools get more progressive and academia continues to fight back, we have to ask ourselves a very important question. What do you say to the football team that literally propelled the existence of your entire school?

Only one school knows the answer to that question, and only one man’s vision will guide that answer.