Though it came down to the wire, Boise State football did choose to leave the Mountain West for the greener Pinstripe Bowl-ier pastures of the Big East. Tough decisions like these often get dragged out not because of a stubborn inability to weigh options rationally, but, rather, because emotion is such a powerful thing.
10:30 am, Friday: Boise State opens its Outlook and gets a meeting reminder. Subject: "WITHDRAW FROM MW." After spending a panicky ten minutes thinking "MW" stands for "murder weapon" and wondering who was the last person to see Dave Christensen alive, Boise breathes a sigh of relief and starts looking for the paperwork it needs to leave the Mountain West.
11:15 am, Friday: File cabinets all appear to be cemented shut and filled with sand. Boise now recalls this change to the office document retention policy under Dan Hawkins. "Recruits want to see your traps, not your subject-verb agreement," Hawkins would say. Then he'd swallow a staple remover.
12:10 pm, Friday: Feeling flustered, Boise decides to break for lunch.
6:50 pm, Friday: Hours later, Boise State comes to in a liquor store parking lot. The memories are fuzzy still, but there was something about the store having a sale on pinot gris and wondering if the Big East could even afford wine if they couldn't afford Pitt and then hey that bottle was good let's have a case!
7:25 pm, Friday: Driving back to campus, Boise State passes a condemned apartment complex. Someone has neglected to remove the "If you lived here, you'd be home by now!" banner out front. Is this a sign, Boise wonders? Well, ok, yes it's a literal sign. But does it mean I should stay? Am I really ready to travel all the way across the country? Will my new home be any better than this apartment complex full of fire ant colonies?
8:45 pm, Friday: For a laugh, Boise State calls Bob Stoops and asks him what his favorite Bartholdi sculpture is.
9:20 pm, Friday: Boise State gets out a legal pad, draws a line down the middle, and labels one side "Reasons To Pick The MWC" and the other "Reasons To Go To The Big East."
11:40 pm, Friday: The MWC half of the pad reads "accepts me for who I am, Vegas trips, lol Bob Davie." The Big East half just has a picture of Calvin peeing on Paul Pasqualoni. Boise remembers there is still wine left in the glove compartment.
2:25 am, Saturday: Boise State sends a long, partially misspelled and slightly hysterical text message to Utah:
hey utha know u said dnt call or rite but i could use ae friennd hwo did u dcide it wus reddy 2 leave and do u miss home i heard lary scottt has a candy dish ful of free i phone s on hs desk so plz call i am so confusd
2:45 am, Saturday: A response to that text message is sent to Boise State:
You know this is BYU, right?
11:15 am, Saturday: Boise State watches the final scene of The Graduate for the seventeenth time in a row.
2:10 pm, Saturday: Boise State watches the final scene of Sphere for the seventeenth time in a row.
4:30 pm, Saturday: Depression setting in, Boise State Googles "how to fake the death of a college football program." A nodding GIF of Larry Coker is the only result.
6:00 pm, Saturday: Too tired to think about it any more, Boise decides to flip one hundred quarters. If the majority are heads, they'll stay put. If the majority are tails, they'll leave.
6:02 pm, Saturday: Halfway through flipping, Boise State realizes this is more money than Temple spends on football all year and tosses the coins aside in disgust.
8:15 pm, Saturday: Two riders are dispatched from Boise State headquarters, bound for the local telegram office. One bears a message confirming departure; the other, informing the Big East that Boise won't be joining.
8:40 pm, Saturday: Both riders accept scholarship offers from Alabama and abandon their tasks.
10:15 pm, Saturday: Boise believes it has found the last bottle of wine under the passenger seat.
10:20 pm, Saturday: The bottle is actually full of balsamic vinegar. Or at least it was. Anguished, Boise State sends up one last plea to the heavens for guidance.
11:05 pm, Saturday: An anonymous email is sent to Boise State, with no subject line or message in the body. Attached is a video containing Memphis football highlights.
11:45 pm, Saturday: Boise State decides to join the Big East.