Boise’s video board will presumably be blue to make it invisible to opponents. (Idaho Statesman/MCT/Getty Images)

By Zac Ellis

Boise State is set to introduce some upgrades to its field and its stadium. Plans are underway to install a new video board at Bronco Stadium, and the field will feature a redesigned logo this season, the Idaho Statesman reports.

The proposed 60-by-33 foot video board will replace the existing structure installed in 2001. On Wednesday, the State Board of Education approved the school’s plans for the $2 million project, which will include room for ads and audio equipment, though a timeline has not yet been provided.

“We are constantly and aggressively looking for ways to enhance the fan experience at Bronco Stadium,” athletic director Mark Coyle said in a statement. “A new video board is a priority for us, and one of the first steps in moving in that direction is gaining approval from the State Board of Education. We appreciate the Board’s support as we move forward.”

A new midfield logo is also set for the Broncos’ trademark blue turf. It will not include the words “Boise State” in the design.

By Zac Ellis

New field design for Wyoming football: http://t.co/M752o1eXto—
Paul Lukas (@UniWatch) May 07, 2013

The Wyoming Cowboys will have a new field to show off this season.

The new rendition of Jonah Field, posted on Twitter by @UniWatch, features snow-capped mountains in the end zones. Visitors to War Memorial Stadium won’t be able to forget the field’s elevation, as the sidelines also read “7220 feet.” Better bring some extra oxygen to those Mountain West matchups.

By Zac Ellis

The Mountain West has approached the Pac-12 about a potential partnership, Jeremy Fowler of CBSSports.com reports. MWC commissioner Craig Thompson hopes the two leagues can form an alliance around nonconference scheduling, bowl matchups and officials. Together, the MWC and Pac-12 count 24 West Coast teams as members.

#MWC approaches #Pac12 about "best practices" partnership of resources, scheduling, etc, commish told @CBSSports cbssports.com/collegefootbal…—
Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerCBS) April 24, 2013

The Mountain West, which only a year ago saw conference realignment threaten its very existence, convinced Boise State and San Diego State to remain with the conference instead of defecting to other leagues. Thompson said he believes the Pac-12 is open to the possibility of a partnership.

This joke is never not funny: There are nine Boise State football players in this picture. Can you spot them all? (AP)

By Holly Anderson

Boise State does not want to have to pay money for aborting its launch to the then-Big East. We are of two minds about this: Should the American justice system do whatever it can to save whomever it can from having to play in the Odd Lots League? Or do those who even act like playing for the freshly hatched American Athletic Conference is a good plan deserve to be left to their fates?

Or will Boise skate free no matter what, by having its players hide all school monies beneath jerseys scattered across the blue turf? The choice is yours:

There are nine Boise State football players in this picture. Can you spot them all? (AP)

Boise State and the Mountain West are trying to make it work, you might have heard, and apparently part of this rekindled relationship involves letting Boise be Boise. The Idaho Statesman got ahold of a letter in which the MWC, which previously banned the Broncos from wearing blue uniforms on their blue home field because of some bizarro belief that elite college athletes cannot see in three dimensions, defends Boise against a proposed NCAA rule change that would take that prohibition nationwide. Why?

The Mountain West required Boise State to wear a contrasting color for conference home games the past two years as part of the Broncos’ membership agreement. However, the league agreed to allow the blue uniforms beginning in 2013 as part of the school’s renewed commitment to the league.

The letter itself states that “The proposed rule is not related to any student-athlete safety concerns,” a position that must be given some weight considering the Broncos’ trip to East Lansing last season. The team was repeatedly victimized by Mark Dantonio’s “Surly Hillocks” defensive alignment, which consists of Spartan defenders dressing in all-green uniforms and lying perfectly still on a verdant field to form tripping hazards.* The unit’s top-five finish speaks for itself.

*This is not actually a thing Michigan State does, but only because Dantonio finds the practice overly slothful.

@SIHolly This turtle has DISAPPOINTED ME. It is SOFT. It is PROBABLY A HIPPY punchpunchpunchpunch—
Matt Brown (@MattLGHL) February 12, 2013

• Just let us have this. And it came to pass that Urban Meyer’s recycled turtle story, which brought great joy to all corners of God’s green internet, gained such traction that Ohio State’s media relations folks were forced to issue the following statement, which we are printing here in full, caps and italics emphasis faithfully reproduced from the original document:

Date:    Feb. 12, 2013
To:       Media Covering Ohio State Football
What:   Joke

This note is in response to the headlines that are running on the internet that don’t seem to take into consideration that Coach Meyer told a JOKE to a crowd of high school coaches last week. He was telling a story about toughness and he exaggerated a story about toughness. It is the same story he has told numerous times before, including last year at this same convention; only the coach he talked about last year wasn’t Coach Hayes, but Coach Bruce.

So please know: the story about toughness that Coach Meyer shared with a crowd last week and the year before and numerous times before was a joke and only a joke.  

Thank you in advance for your clarifications.

Nothing gold can stay, y’all.

• In happier B1G news … Barry Alvarez says the Big Ten is done scheduling FCS programs. We are pleased. Some other folks are not, and there are valid reasons, but we’d still rather watch New Mexico State than the Citadel. Sorry, the Citadel.

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In the dystopian future of the Big East, BBVA Compass Bowl trophies will be a highly valued currency. (AP)

• “Group of five” still just sounds so ominous. Jeremy Fowler reports on the coalescing system the Big East, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt are working on to distribute playoff revenue from the new postseason system:

In this proposed system, more than half the group’s roughly $86-million playoff pot would be distributed among the Big East, Mountain West, Mid-American Conference, Conference USA and Sun Belt as guaranteed base shares, according to a source with direct knowledge of the discussions. The source expects those shares to be evenly split, but added discussions are ongoing. The second tier pays out based on a conference’s body of work — the top conference gets the highest amount, then “X” amount for the next-rated conference, and on down. The third tier pays a kicker to the conference with the highest-ranked team, which is guaranteed an access bowl bid or, if among the top-four teams in the country, a semifinal berth in the playoff.

• Harbros’ early broing days. Check out Dan Wetzel’s tale of relatively wee Harbaughs recruiting youngsters to their dad’s team at Western Kentucky, including an appearance by one Willie Taggart.

• Exactly how you would’ve guessed. Former Miami Hurricanes make up the biggest slice of Super Bowl roster pie charts, but two of the next five teams on that list are … Marshall and Utah? Marshall and Utah! Go ThunderUtes!

• From the no-jokes department. Compelling story via OTL on UCLA researchers and evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in living football players.

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Air Force will play football in the Mountain Division of the Mountain West next season, giving us a fantastic excuse to post this photo. (AP)

Today in Not Doing It Wrong: The Mountain West has just announced divisions for its new 12-team Voltron form, and it announced the names for those divisions, and it did so in a way that makes it sorta almost impossible for anybody to make fun of the league. This is bad for us, and great for the Mountain West. Pertinent details, per the conference’s release:

“The new football alignments will feature Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, New Mexico, Utah State and Wyoming in the Mountain Division and Fresno State, Hawai’i, Nevada, San Diego State, San Jose State and UNLV in the West Division. Each team will play five divisional games and three cross-divisional contests annually. The actual rotational sequence and matchups will be developed via computer scheduling models.

“The inaugural Mountain West Football Championship game will be played December 7, 2013 at the home stadium of the team with the highest BCS ranking.”

Getting to say “Mountain West Mountain Division Champs” appears to be the ceiling for goofiness here. Well played, Mountain West. (Control your envious sneering, Big Ten.) The sporting internet, of course, had further division name suggestions should the conference ever embark on a rebranding spree. Helpful Twitter suggestions after the jump:

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• You a Terp? Maryland has announced walk-on football tryouts for Wednesday, January 30. You must be a full-time, currently enrolled student to be eligible for consideration.

This is also your reminder that heading into Maryland’s last regular-season football game of 2012, this is what Maryland’s injury report looked like. So if you’re an aspiring quarterback, we’re honestly not sure whether to tell you to show up or stay away.

• Meanwhile, while the internet was caving in on itself …  Lost yesterday in the avalanche of news shocks was the announcement that the Mountain West has retaken San Diego State. (We’re choosing to picture this as a giant Risk board in action. The Big 12 is clearly Australia.) We have an MWC source who’s promised to tell us the second the conference poaches UCLA, and y’all will be the first to know after that.

• Coach-hirin’ follies! Go right on ahead and apply for Chip Kelly’s old job, and be sure and let us know how that works out … here is a magnificent lead followed by Rob Mullens’ insistence that he has no clubhouse leaders in mind for Kelly’s vacant seat … John-El lands at DII Fort Lewis College … Utah passing coordinator Aaron Roderick will take the OC slot at BYU [UPDATE: No he won't!] … Louisiana Tech won’t have to re-glaze any of its “I <3 OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR TONY” mugs … Tim Rosenbach joins the UNLV staff as OC.

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What glories yet await Cory Dorris and the Golden Hurricane as Conference USA play continues? (AP)

Our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome.

Tis the season for car commercials with big-ass bows and conference math. We attempted to explain, in bewildering detail, how the MAC races could shake out from here in our Wednesday night MACtion preview. We are here to inform you (with some glee, as we adore late-season chaos) that the MAC has far from the most convoluted conference race situation at the moment. Very quickly, the current states of the remaining non-AQ conference races, as teams not named Navy or BYU begin to prettify themselves for postseason suitors:

• Conference USA: Two teams with perfect 6-0 league play records top the two divisions: Central Florida in the East and Tulsa in the West. After Saturday, one squad’s record will bear some blemish when the two clash in Tulsa, but don’t expect that to affect the race. The Knights have only UAB to clear after that in the regular season, and hold a head-to-head advantage over East Carolina, the only other team in the division with fewer than three conference losses. Tulsa’s championship game aspirations could still be spoiled with a loss tonight and another at SMU November 24, assuming the Mustangs (4-2 in league play) beat Rice in the meantime.

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