GeauxSioux

You didn't think that up all by yourself did you? Come on ... who helped you?

I have five sweatshirts, four t-shirts and a couple of polo shirts with either Sioux logos or name and although I don't get to wear it very often living in the South, I did get one of those leather jackets from the Sioux Shop. Saw it and had to have it. My office has one nice picture of the Ralph, a Sioux penant and mouse pad. I also have Sioux Illustrated scattered throughout, including the "reading room".

With all of the seniors graduating from last year's team, the Sioux will be young. http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/s...ta/15221934.htm

Can't help you on the logic on that one. I'm an innocent bystander who enjoys reading about the speculcation. Good luck on your Mid-Con visit.

I can't answer you on how Fullerton thinks, but there is a bit of a difference between Seattle and Denver. U of Washington is located in Seattle and to my knowledge is the only D-I school there. They totally dominate the media in coverage. I know this because I once lived there. The Denver media market is different. U of Colorado is less than 30 miles away. Colordado State is about 65 miles away. U of Denver is right there in the metro. They all take a piece of the pie. Denver does not have the dominant school in the market. Perhaps that leaves an opening in Seattle for another school to get some press, but from what I saw it all revolved around U Dub in Seattle.

I agree that Western Washington could be a good travel partner for UBC, but I don't see how that gives them the Seattle market. U of Washington has the Seattle market. I don't think a smaller school 90 miles away is going to encroach upon their hold on that market.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to GF very often, links this are nice for checking on what is going on in GF http://www.canadinns.com/photogallery/gall...p?gallery_id=20 Construction looks like it is moving along nicely.

I would say that many of the Sun Belt, MAC and WAC belong in I-AA or whatever it is to be called. They are the teams near the bottom of attendance in 2005. Some not averaging the magic 15,000. http://www.ncaa.org/stats/football/attenda..._attendance.pdf What really suprised me is that Duke averages less than 18,000.

McMurry University's appeal was also rejected this week. Legal action is being discussed. http://mooresportsreport.blogspot.com/2006/08/msr-alert.html

I think Kupchella would have a very tough time to say we are going to stay DII. I do believe that that there are a few Bison fans, not saying that you are one of them, that don't want UND to be Division I.

Do you mean Mark was wrong about this?

Interesting article on the history of nicknames. http://small-business-help69651.blogspot.c...-could-wax.html I never tire of hearing North Dakota noted as a hockey power or hockey powerhouse.

This gets more confusing by the day.

Do you have a link for the story?

How do the Ralph and the Betty figure into our budget figures? From what I understand there was a one-time large payment of $2M on the Betty in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2005 which is the last year that figures are publically available. Doesn't the REA compex itself have a $10M dollar budget? THis isn't even calculcated into the budget from what I have read. And if $2M were a one time payment on the Betty and UND ended up in the black (according to the aff maligned OPE data) wouldn't that mean that there was a lot more black ink than what was thought or was there $2M in revenue allocated specifically for the Betty? Does anyone know what the athletic budget is for 2006-2007. I see that Nano compares NDSU's final "projected" budget at the end of transition to UND's budget from 2004-2005. As always, none of us have all the information for any of these comparisons.

That is why I moved from Seattle to Florida. Miserable and depressing. I see SDSU moving to the Mid-Con. I'm still questioning whether NDSU will go. Once again, call me stupid, but I still see the Big Sky calling NDSU in the next few months. Regardless, the conference situation for NDSU should be resolved by the end of this year.

We shall see.

Your posts sound as if you think that I'm bordering on lunacy. The end of my post was a throw away.

Hence my questions: Does this sound like stability? My original post started out that I had questions regarding auto-bid and "core" schools regarding the BSC. Do you have any information on how each of these would impact the Big Sky or do you want to drop the facade and just call me stupid?

I was playing off the posts by both sicatoka and wyobisonman stating that the west coast big city schools would bolt for a conference that is a better fit. And yes, I think that the Dakota schools would offer better stability to a conference. How long were all of them in the NCC? Was it 1926 that it started? That is pretty stable. How many conferences in the country have had that kind of stability?

Questions for anyone who may know. If a majority of the presidents did decide that they wanted some stability for the future and voted all 4 of the Dakota schools in, who would bolt the conference? How would that affect the auto-bid for the Big Sky? How long would it take insofar as the "core school" portioin of the equation? I doubt that the 4 school scenario would happen all at once. It would need to be done incrementally. From past experience the Big Sky has always said that geography was the biggest stumbling block to the Dakotas, but if they had an attractive arrangement I would think that could overcome the geography problem. Perhaps taking NDSU and SDSU wasn't attractive enough to overtake geography. Perhaps a UND/NDSU or USD/SDSU would be due to the natural rivalries. I know much more about the UND/NDSU than the USD/SDSU. I would think that a conference would love to have what the North Dakota combo has to offer. The schools are less than 80 miles apart, nearly the same size and very competitive with each other.

I think if you had asked any Bison fan 1 year or even 6 months ago what they thought of the Mid-Con you would have had a much different answer than you have today. It may be that they just "warmed up" to the idea of being in the Mid-Con, but I would guess that most would still rather be in the Mid-Con. Good luck with your upcoming campus visits from the Mid-Con people. I don't recall any UND poster saying that a BSC invitation is a "cinch". Star2City seems to have done the most research on the Big Sky and even some of his posts have been tempered with "hope". As for me, I too am just hopeful that it is possible in the near future, as I think the BSC is the best fit for UND.

The gang that couldn't shoot straight. It seems to me that Paulson wants Potts gone Now and doesn't want to wait for until July 2007. http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/20...tate/118458.txt

I saw this in the Bismarck Tribune. As it stands Potts will remain the chancellor.