bincitysioux

Sounds like there is not currently an agreement in place for North Dakota to play USD next season. They are still "working on it". IMO, it would be foolish not to get this game done, even if it means us travelling to Verm next season.

Here's a link to a video story about potential upgrades to athletic facilities at SDSU and USD. There are artist renderings for SDSU's hopes for a future football stadium. I thought it was kind of funny that the video story opens with the narrator saying that "you can always count on a packed house for SDSU Jackrabbit football..............". I think there was like 3,500 on hand when we played them last season.

The UND brass has definately been "wooing" Fennell..................... He was back in Grand Forks two seasons ago and was the honorary captain for one of the home games. He's long been the subject of speculation as a source for an upcoming sizable donation to North Dakota football. My take is that if it happens, it will be more along the lines of making a significant dent into the cost of the $30 Million practice facility rather than a significant dent into a $200 Million+ rectractable roof football stadium.

Obviously, the NDSU game will probably draw around 10,000 on its own. If they market the Montana game correctly and as heavily as they marketed the USD games the last few seasons, the Sioux Center should sell out for the Griz, or come real close...........

I think last season's game was the final installment of a 2-for-1. If I remember correctly, UNC played in GF during the 2009-10 season.

Don't have dates, just making a list.................... Coach Moody told me about Montana and Sac St. I believe Sweeney mentioned the La Tech game during the broadcast this season when they were in GF. NDSU, Kansas, and Longwood have been mentioned in the papers at one time or another. Before he left, Moody also mentioned that they were trying to work something out with South Dakota, and also were having talks with a Big Sky school about an in-season home-and-home. Never heard if anything got done on either front.

NDSU Montana @ Kansas @ Sacramento St. @ Longwood @ Louisiana Tech

If I know Grand Forks sports fans like I think I do, they will not take to well to the idea of going back to the great outdoors for Sioux Football after getting comfortable inside the Alerus.

Here are some pics of Portland State's newly rennovated stadium. Granted, it is mainly for Portlands's MLS soccer team, and that is what drove the rennovations, but it still looks kinda cool........... JELD-WEN Field

I agree that it is great to dream big, and look to the future..............who knows what could happen down the road? I believe it was Irish that pointed it out........who would have realistically thought that we could have basically doubled the size of the hockey rink, and still sold out every game for 10 years running? Having said that however, I'm in the camp that we need to focus on filling the stadium that we have before entertaining the idea of moving out of it........I think that most coaches, administrators, and student-athletes would probably agree that the Alerus is nicer than 90% of all FCS football venues.

What he said.................

In addition to travelling to La Tech & Longwood, we travel to Sacramento State. Montana comes to the Betty............

I'm growing tired of this Lacrosse thread................. Apparently, UND is dumb enough to continue funding baseball at the DI level, even when the conference we are to be members of don't sponsor the sport. That leads me to have little hope that North Dakota is smart enough to explore the idea of Lacrosse, a sport that we could actually be competetive at, relatively speaking compared to baseball.....................

I think every accomodation should be made to the football team to put them into a position so that they are one day as highly regarded as the hockey team is. Voluntarily putting them at a competetive disadvantage does nothing to achieve this.

Just some factoids and links about our future conference mates...................... The Big Sky conference was formed in 1963 by the University of Montana, Montana State, Idaho State, University of Idaho, Weber State, and Gonzaga. Former members include Boise State, Idaho, Nevada, Gonzaga, and Cal State- Northridge. Weber State University -Location: Ogden, UT -Enrollment: 25,130 -Nickname: Wildcats -Message Board: Weber State Wildcats -18 time Big Sky Men

Just curious why you don't like it.............................I think it is a great place to watch football...............

The more I think about, the more I don't know what I'd like the best....................... One of the things that I thought was cool about the Big Sky is that the regular season champ hosts. I think It'd be pretty cool to have the Big Sky tourney in Grand Forks.............. On the other hand, the Big Sky is so vast, I'm not sure how well attendend a neutral site tournament would be, regardless of where it is at. So maybe they should just forget the wholed thing....... On the third hand, the GWC tournament was fun to follow for us Sioux fans this year. Without it, we wouldn't have gotten to go to the CIT, as we finished just 3rd in the league during the regular season. Aw, I suppose I won't worry about it too much either way...................I doubt the Big Sky will ask my opinion anyways...............................

Comcast, which owns Versus, recently purchased NBC Universal................. Versus airs a fair amount of the minor sports from the Mountain West, Pac 10, Big 12, and Sun Belt. I think they have a few MWC football games each season as well. I can't imagine that the growing Versus/NBC Sports Group would be too interested Big Sky athletics. They seem to be positioning themselves to become a major competitor with ESPN and Fox Sports Net. If anything, in a best case scenario,I think the growth of Versus, and the potential formation of a Pac-12 Network, could result in more TV exposure for the Big Sky on regional Fox Sports Net channels and Altitude.

I agree with that as well. IMO, the State and University should get one more year to resolve this in a favorable way for UND. As long as the football team is not eligible for the playoffs, they are not being hurt. I love the name, the tradition, and everything it stands for as much as the staunchest supporters, but in my mind there would be nothing "honorable" about retaining it if in doing so it places nearly a quarter of the University's student-athletes at a competetive disadvantage in the sport that they compete in. I say one more year because I hold UND football to a high standard, and I fully expect them to compete in 2012 and challenge for a playoff berth.

If I'm not mistaken, the University, the State Board of Higher Ed, and the State Legislature has been sorting through this mess for 5 years or so................how long do they need? The arguement that "well the football team didn't look all that competetive last season and obviously because of that they'll still be crappy two seasons from now, so screw em' ", is pretty lame in my book. Look at our own hockey team.............in 1995-96 they were a game over .500 and lost ON THE ROAD in the first round of the WCHA playoffs. The following year they won more than 30 games and won the national title. Matt brought up NDSU. Let's look at them a little closer..................they were 3-8 in 2009. A year later they won 4 more games in the regular season, and played in 3 playoff games. They won 1 game at home, and 1 on the road. They lost their third game in overtime ON THE ROAD. I watched that game, and despite EWU being the higher seed, and were "expected to win", I'm convinced that the outcome could have been different if that game were played in Fargo.

That's a valid point, and the teams who perform the best during the regular season should be rewarded as such.

Just add to my original post.................. Since the playoff format began in 1978, the home teams have a record of 281-107. If my math is correct, that would indicate that the home team wins about 72% of the time during the playoffs........................

I think that fightingsioux.com is very good.........as good as a site that is run by an athletic program itself can be expected to be. I'm very thankful for the Sioux Insider guys..........they were very active during the season, during recruiting, and during spring practice. As an apparently independent source of news, they are a great bonus. The Grand Forks Herald is terribly pathetic when it comes to covering anything other than hockey. We are very lucky to have Schlossman covering that program, he is obviously an extremely hard worker. The rest of the content is not much better than the weekly county newspapers you'll find in rural North Dakota. They simply regurgitate what is posted at Fightingsioux.com a day later. Frustrating to say the least.

I'm not opposed to having a long-term vision of FBS for North Dakota. But I don't feel that now is the time and the current incarnation of the WAC is nothing to strive for IMO. It has fallen so far that it has become the worst FBS league there is. When we were searching for a conference, some of us (including myself) floated the idea of pursuing affiliate membership for football in the Southland as a last resort.....................the WAC has become a Southland on steroids, and probably isn't done suffering either. By the time ESPN is done renegotiating their TV deal with them, I'd argue that UND on it's own will have a better television deal, if being on TV is what is most important to you. To me, being in the worst FBS conference versus the best FCS conference isn't a step up........ And by the way, all the FCS playoff games are on ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN3........

I know this is all old news, but out of boredom I was perusing Egriz and the Weber St. Board and was surprised to find that there seems to be just as many posters in favor of dropping the conference tournament all together as there are in favor of moving it to a neutral site................... The Ivy League doesn't have a tournament, and simply awards their autobid to the regular season champ. Does anyone think this idea has any merit? I wouldn't necessarily like having no tournament, as I'm a fan of March Madness, which IMO starts when the conference tourney's start. But honestly, if the goal is to save money, it probably isn't a bad idea. It would ensure that the best team always makes the tournament. And since the Big Sky is a one bid league anyways, it's always a good idea to get the strongest team in the tourney. Just food for thought.................