With millions of dollars in media rights and the massive impact on status at play, the histories of conference realignment certainly do read like a political thriller.
But the thing about political thrillers is that, without the right context, it’s easy to misunderstand what has really happened or why it matters.
That’s how one line in a 3,000-word article by The Athletic’s Chris Vannini about former Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson’s career as a college administrator went from being a whodunit reveal to just a casual, innocuous reference:
“Boise State and the Mountain West were about to face a crisis.