When Boise State football coach Chris Petersen spurned all suitors and agreed to a five-year, $12 million contract this offseason, it signaled a tipping point in the program.

If Petersen is unwilling to leave Boise now — with the Broncos coming off a fourth consecutive top-11 finish in the Associated Press poll, facing a future without the all-time winningest quarterback in college football history and the greatest senior class in school history, and with programs reportedly offering $4 million per season for his services — then he may never leave.

Or, at least, he plans on sticking around for a while, especially with his salary climbing past $2 million next season and a new football complex soon under construction.

But that stability at the top — a tremendous thing for the Broncos’ future fortunes — has a downside, and we’re seeing it this week in the departures of assistant coaches Brent Pease (to Florida), Jeff Choate (to Washington State) and Marcel Yates (to Texas A&M).

If Petersen had taken a job in an automatic-qualifying conference, those staff members could have gone with him — and continued their career progress and made the type of life-changing money now available to college coaches.

“To take this whole show and stay together would be great,” Pease told the Statesman on Wednesday night. “But that’s not possible.”

So instead, he is trading one blue and orange for another. Successful offensive coordinators in the Southeastern Conference get head-coaching opportunities. Successful offensive coordinators at Boise State get bigger salaries as offensive coordinators at bigger programs.

“When you look at the opportunities you’ve created for yourself down the road, it’s something I wanted to do and had to do,” said Pease, who was a candidate for the Houston head-coaching position this off-season. “Other than Pete doing it here, I haven’t seen a lot of guys do it.”

Three SEC offensive coordinators got head-coaching jobs for 2011, including Pease’s good friend Jim McElwain (from Alabama to Colorado State).

Petersen’s tenure is already longer than his three predecessors: Houston Nutt, Dirk Koetter and Dan Hawkins. Before those coaches could have this type of staff turnover, they moved on, taking many assistants with them to Arkansas, Arizona State and Colorado.

In 2006, in his first major moves as Boise State’s head coach, Petersen tabbed two 29-year-old relative unknowns without coordinating experience to be his offensive and defensive coordinators. Bryan Harsin (now at Texas) and Justin Wilcox (Tennessee and Washington) worked out pretty well.

Now Petersen gets a chance to remake the staff once again. This could be his most important hiring season since ’06. He has a chance to bring an infusion of new blood, new thoughts, new energy and new ideas to Boise State.

“Certainly it’s always going to cause changes and have an impact. Sometimes change can be good. It depends on how well it meshes,” said former Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore, who started the last four seasons.

“The bottom line is Coach Pete’s there and as long as he's there, everything is going to work out just fine.”

In Pete, everyone trusts.

Said Pease: “The stabilizing force is still there — and that’s Coach Pete.”

But he faces tough choices. You want coaches who are in demand and who are looking to move on. But the constant loss of good assistants has harmed many good programs.

This was already an important offseason for Petersen and the Broncos.

Now it is critical.