Conference Realignment: Boise State's One Night Stand with the Mountain West

Boise State for the longest time, or in other words, since their upset victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, has been college football's darling. The media have always been very kind to the Smurf turfers from Idaho. Boise State also has a new reputation beyond being everybody's favorite BCS buster; they are now the school known for commitment issues. 

It wasn't too long ago that the Boise State Broncos moved from the WAC to the Mountain West Conference. If memory serves me correct, which it rarely does, Boise State moved in the 2010 offseason.

The moment Boise State's inaugural season in the Mountain West began, there were already rumblings that they were going to bolt for seemingly greener pastures of the geographically confused Big East Conference. 

I can completely understand why Boise State would want to move to the Big East, namely for the apparently superior competition. Financially, Boise State made the right choice, but this sudden change to the Big East represents some of the worst aspects of the current college football landscape.

People constantly criticize schools for suddenly packing their bags and switching conferences for no apparent reason other than they can. As such, Boise State should receive a certain amount of flak for putting the future of other conferences at stake.

The Mountain West's future as a competitive conference is all but dead; the best the conference could hope to be is another mid-major conference known better as a steppingstone than as a true athletic conference. 

Boise State no longer has to worry about any future commitments to the Mountain West because, according to ESPN, the Broncos beat a deadline that would have forced them to stay. So, as of now the blue turf group is going to enter the Big East on July 1st of 2013. 

Hopefully for the sake of the Big East and college football as a whole, Boise State can stay in a conference for longer than two seasons. Hopefully the Broncos will enjoy "great" competition against such football powerhouse schools as Rutgers, USF, Memphis, San Diego State and the perennial national title contender that is SMU. 

There is one thing that I am curious about: Why didn't the Pac-12 (when they expanded) or Big 12 want Boise State?