BOISE STATE FOOTBALL PREPARES TO “WIN THE WAIT” BY DAVE SOUTHORN | PHOTOS COURTESY OF BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY
H
e was not expecting much of a different answer, but when Boise State football coach Bryan Harsin spoke to his friends in the profession around the country that started their seasons as scheduled, they all responded similarly. “It’s gonna be weird, it’s gonna be different,” Harsin said. For more than a month, Boise State, along with the rest of the Mountain West Conference, was not going to play in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic had forced a postponement to the spring.
But on Sept. 25, the conference reversed course and announced a return for the weekend of Oct. 24. Other fall sports, including soccer, volleyball and cross country, are still postponed.
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Football drives more money than any other sport in college athletics, and bringing it back – even with a shorter schedule – will reduce the financial burden the pandemic has caused thanks to lucrative television contracts.
Without football, Boise State was facing a $20 million loss, and still will be in the red with it. The school cut its baseball and swimming and diving programs this summer and has implemented salary cuts and furloughs in the athletic department.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to take the deficit, whatever it’s going to be, and make it as small of a number as we can to go into the next academic year,” Boise State Athletic Director Curt Apsey said. Boise State’s schedule, which normally features 12 regular-season
