The Sicatoka

I know with all smoke in the air from Canadian wild fires the last two weeks that my lungs feel like crap. I wonder how the team feels.

Tell me about your offensive line and I'll tell you about your season.

Put it in the "Jerseys" thread.

You don't have to be a "great football mind", (c) Dan "Common Man" Cole, to see what can be seen. NDSU, as I've said time and again, doesn't do anything exceptional. But what they do they do exceptionally well. Watch and you'll see they ultimately have only about four to six blocking schemes. They run formation variants of, when you observe and count, fewer than 20 differentiated plays. Why do you think that when they do go off script (fake punt in NC game?) it works so well. But even then, ... they execute the play flawlessly. And sometimes you have to do less to do more. NDSU's offense proves this time and again. I believe the UND offense focuses too much on number of differentiated plays and not enough on quality of execution of the given play. Show me a play where NDSU misses a key block and I'll show you 30 where UND does.

#MeToo meets Moscow, Idaho.

You don't have to repeat others' silly errors like that MAC mistake. Right now the western FBS schools get to schedule FCS teams (bargain prices). What UND gets for playing Washington is not what a SunBelt team gets for playing an SEC.

Random thoughts and observations: There's no western MAC. There should be one. FBS football is expensive; but FCS football is a money-losing proposition also. I believe the P5 will break away and form it's own "level" before you'd see this "Summit Football" consortium happen and become FBS. However, should the P5 do that, the G5 would need it to happen to stay viable. And in that scenario who knows how rules like "85" and "15000" reshape. I'd rather have folks pondering these outlandish notions than be blindsided by them. Why? I'm literally replacing the whole communication schema on a machine (that there are 1000s of out there). When it was originally designed the communication schema used "would never go obsolete or be too slow". Guess what. Too slow happened. And there's no provision in the design to fix it other than total rip-up and change-out to all new tech. Times change. And now I'm having to basically start from scratch because nobody thought or planned for "that day". It's called "risk management". You ponder the real "what ifs". You come up with how you'd handle them. You write it down so you have a plan ... just in case. You don't have to execute on any of it until "if" starts to materialize as more than just "if".

Clarified your post. And, agile 6'6" guys can make a lot of money playing BB.

That exists today. It's called the Sun Belt. No, wait, the MAC.

Now the rules may have changed since I last read them but I believe to be FBS you must do 90% of allowed scholarships on a rolling two year average.

Staring at a map and various conference (Summit, BSC) membership ... UND, NDSU, USD, SDSU, UNO, DU EWU, Idaho, Montana, Montana State, Weber State, Northern Colorado* That's 10 FB (nine game schedule) and 12 BB (22 games) with easy travel partners. *UNC or Idaho State, pick poison.

Today, honesty, there are about four levels of "NCAA DI" football: The P5 The G5 FCS scholarship (FCS-S) FCS non-scholarship (FCS-NS) To my eyes: There's some blur between very bottom P5 and very top of G5. There's a lot of blur between bottom half G5 and top half of FCS-S. There's some blur between the very bottom of FCS-S and FCS-NS.

Shouldn't there be some wailing and gnashing of teeth over the University adding another VP? Sackcloth? Ashes? Anyone?

It's as accurate and true as this.

That part is not true. Nothing was outside; it was scattered all about in the main concourse.

There's this guy, Dan Marino, ... that's how it should look.

When an entity goes through and reorganizes the budget as you describe it is usually either due to (a) shortfalls or (b) reprioritization. I make no claim; I just provide that observation.

DU backup goaltender Rasmussen heading back to the USHL.

Sad but true.

They'll end up following IUPUI is the primary speculation.

DU, UND, and UNO are Summit and NCHC. Could the NCHC realign itself under the Summit and be a "mens team sport"? Imaging the wailing and gnashing of teeth, then rending of garments, in Fargo and Brookings if the Summit MBB autobid was dependent upon hockey . The key here is the MBB autobid (and associated payola). That must be protected above all else.

More like 1970s.

Folks, this aspect is real. The Summit is keeping its MBB autobid under the "BB plus two other mens team sports" rule. The other NCAA option is "MBB and FB" to be sponsored by the conference. Those "two other mens team sports" have to have 6 members playing for it to count. If the Summit loses PUFW (IPFW? MIC-KEY-MOU-SE?) it's a double shot. Six Summits play baseball, including PUFW. Six Summits (includes two affiliates already) play mens soccer and PUFW is one of those. Lose PUFW and it's a double-shot: You have to find a baseball and a soccer school, ... or go begging hat-in-hand again to the NCAA for another exemption. How do you get out of this conundrum? Well, five Summit schools play football now. Add one and go under the "BB and FB" rule -- Summit League football. If Summit League football is created, who knows what follows.

That’s not a great word to use in any context. Sorry. Do I believe he will epically decimate, functionally obliterate, someone such that it’ll be on the highlight reels and commercials and B-rolls for years? Yup. Think: contact where his linemen give him the pancake of the week award.

EGF has turf like Memorial.