Undertherock

Ok. To be clear, I'm not hoping.

I am increasingly of the belief SDSU will be FBS next season and if not, the following. There's smoke in Brookings.

Yikes. That's a lot of tickets to sell. Is Potato Bowl your homecoming?

See above re: competitiveness in the 2020s. NDSU winning titles or even weekly contests was no longer a foregone conclusion but the fans didn't come back. And even if it is real, the question remains, how do the likes of UTEP and San Jose revive that interest? Or the Famous Potato Bowl? Or playing even worse FCS teams in your OOC slate?

Anyway, back on topic: SDSU whipped Stetson 70-7. Not much to take away from that game other than it sure was prettier than the lethargic game SDSU had against PFL Drake last season. JSD beat Central Conn or something like that 59-20. Sounds like the RF QB had a decent outing.

Didn't discount the on field success at all. Its the perception of the brand value and the crux of the argument being NDSU will never be P4. I still don't buy the bored fan schtick. NDSU hasn't enjoyed the same success in the 2020s as it has in the 2010s. If its a matter of competitiveness, then the 2020s should have revived the fan interest. SDSU primarily, the Montanas and even the UxDs have invested in their programs and filled the void left by the Georgia Southerns and JMUs, who NDSU saw at most once a year. How does UTEP or San Jose eliminate the fan disinterest?

I'm not discounting the Bison's success at all. Winning 9 of 11 FCS championships is a tremendous accomplishment. The media took notice, as they should have. And the media now will give the Bison some love with the transition and if, as they should, they quickly dominate the MWC. But a big part of the media love the Bison have received is because its "cute" for lack of a better term and the pop culture association of bleak, snowbound, backwards people disposing of crime scenes with wood chippers. A lot of folks in North Fargo I think have mistaken the media attention with the Bison somehow becoming a national brand. While winning an unprecedented string of championships was cute, going 9-3 or 10-2, which should be the expectation each sason, and being rewarded with the Boca Raton Bowl won't be cute anymore. I don't buy the bored fan schtick. The reality is that even Fargo, the Bison aren't that interesting. They certainly aren't going to attract eyeballs and don't share too many institutional qualities of P4 schools that will ever garner a sniff from a P4 conference. Hell, if they weren't willing to pay such a ridiculous ransom, they weren't getting an invite to the MWC.

I think (and hope) that the thoughts of the vast majority of SDSU fans and admin are in agreement with your first paragraph. I believe SDSU belongs in the second tier of college football but I don't think its accurate to say, as @Bison06 does that the G6 is second tier. If it were, there'd be a real prize to play for and right now, there isn't. Sure, there's a remote possibility of reaching the CFP but for what, get shellacked in the first round? You can be sure that after last year, the P2 will see to it that the G6 will get no more than one team in the playoff and its going to take a miracle to get a bid out of the Mountain West. A team will need to play a demanding out of conference schedule that would might require no less than two road wins against ranked P4 opponents, and likely 3 OOC P4 games, total, leaving only one OOC home game, and/or the MWC to have a very high quality year with a number of OOC upsets against P4. That will be almost impossible after UNLV and AF leave when the grant of rights are up. What, then, is there to play for? That stooge McFeely wrote in one of his columns that the FBS move wasn't about the playoffs (tacitly acknowleding that meaningful postseason football is the thing of the past in Fargo) but about regular season games. But if its about regular season games, and your conference mates are really no better than MVFC teams, then what's better? Hoping for a single road game to a P4 school? SDSU was historically a basketball school and the fan engagement and support really almost unparalleled back in the NCC days. Now? Sure, both programs are arguably the best supported programs in the Summit League but the level of engagemetn and interest is a shell of what it used to be. The reality is that even for the women, you're playing for a Summit League tourney championship and really nothing more. I see a move to FBS for our schools as doing to FB what's been done to all other sports - the climax of your season is playing for a conference championship. Is that satisfactory in football?

What FCS team is getting $1m or more for a buy game? The most I've ever seen is $700k. That's nothing to sneeze at but the reality is that P4 don't exactly want to fork over big bucks to play top FCS teams and risk losing. If UND can become a top FCS team with sustained success, you'll find that the calls from P4 for buy games become less frequent and you'll be lucky to get an FBS game every couple of years. And FCS teams don't want to show up in Grand Forks to get pasted. SDSU had to pay Stetson $350k to get drilled Saturday night. We almost didn't have a game or were at risk of scheduling DII, which would have been more competitive but would have been a knock come seeding.

Everyone acts like the NDSU of the 2020s was the same NDSU of the 2010s. This decade, they went to 3 championship games and won 2, the same results as the other xDSU, with almost the same overall record. 2 other teams have won championships this decade. Still at the top? Sure, but not for ordained like 10 years ago when they were spending head and shoulders above other FCS schools. But SDSU caught up (and passed in spending). JSD and UND were pulling even and the Montanas are pouring resources into their programs. And for all the talk of the JMUs and Georgia Southerns leaving, the aforementioned schools filled the void along with Tarletons, UTRGV, etc.

Exactly. The only teams running a gauntlet in the FCS are garbage teams from poverty programs that need the revenue (See EIU playing Minnesota, SDSU, Ill St).

Would you rather your team play UST or another cupcake on the road? Home games equal revenue and while it's not ideal if your people don't show up, it's better than going on the road.

Whioux cares?

JSD is offensive to you?

Yes, in jest. I'm positive that SDSU admin volunteered to go to GF notwithstanding it being something of a house of horrors for SDSU over the years. I can see wanting UND and JSD coming to town in alternating years, the theory being going forward they will be the biggest draw on the calendar. I have no idea if the Whioux will draw - it's been so long - but not even parents and boyfriends watch JSD in Vermillion and as of now, only ISUb, in late November, has fewer tickets sold than a Halloween game with JSD. Meanwhile, we already have 19k tickets sold for Stetson, New Haven and Eastern Illinois, 18k for Murray State, which will sell out for Hobo Day, and 17k for the penguins, which, being early season, and Dairy Drive promo, will eventually sell out. I assume JSD will sell out if the Jacks perform as expected and/or JSD surprises, eventually. But there hasn't been a lot of red at DJD even with JSD improved last few years.