bincitysioux

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.................

Have you guys seen the current WAC? I would want no part of that.............

I agree that the Big Sky doesn't care where a game is being broadcast from. But I think they probably care a great deal at how well their member institutions perform, in that they want them to do well in the playoffs especially and advance through the tournament. IMO this data illustrates that every time that North Dakota makes the FCS playoffs, they will be at a definate disadvantage compared to every other participant. We could end up the #1 seed and still have to travel to Rhode Island for example. On the other hand, we could go 7-4 and be "the last team in". With our resources we could in theory out-bid a higher ranked team for a opening round home game, all things being equal..........but things aren't going to be equal. I'm happy that it looks like we'll be the Fighting Sioux for the foreseeable future. It honestly doesn't affect me all that much, other than it looks like my favorite football team's season will usually end earlier than I like. I feel I am objective enough to recognize that unless the NCAA changes its policy, the 2nd most visible athletic program at the University will be severely harmed going forward.

This is football and nickname related.................... Everyone knows how important it is to be playing at home during the postseason. Of the 33 champions crowned in the history of FCS: Just 11 of those teams won away games during the playoffs Just 6 of those teams won more than one away game Just two FCS champions did not host any games during their playoff runs* *James Madison won all 3 playoff games on the road in 2004, and Eastern Kentucky won 1 road game in the first tournament in 1978 when just four teams competed. Just something to chew on........................

Grind it out, black-and-blue football is probably what one thinks of when they think of North Dakota football, but actually during this decade UND for the most part has been known for a wide open run and gun offense. Pretty much every passing record at North Dakota has been set within the last 7 years or so. And it has all been done with our current head coach calling the plays as he was offensive coordinator for around 8 years prior to be named head coach. The question is whether or not we have the personnel to accomplish what the coach wants to do and what he has done in the past. Coach Mussman likes to chuck it around.....................

Welcome to the board...... North Dakota is ecstatic to be in the Big Sky conference, and if the Summit and MVFC called tomorrow and offered, there is zero chance that UND would leave the Big Sky for those affiliations. The only way UND pursues Summit and/or MVFC membership is if the Big Sky completely implodes and loses a multitude of the more northern and eastern members............. 13 teams for football presents some challenges of course, like not playing full round-robin and could lead to some unconventional means to crowning a champion in some years, but it is still doable and I tend to think those issues will work themselves out. In any case, the unbalanced scheduling could provide opportunities for teams in some years that have a favorable schedule to surprise the rest of the league, as has happened with the Big 10 from time to time. For teams that play the stronger schedules, and do well with them, it could provide better seeding come playoff time. I haven't heard yet if the Big Sky is considering going back to the "lone wolf" scheduling model for basketball. There has been alot of speculation that UND and Northern Colorado may be travel partners. I had actually hoped that the league would go with an unbalanced 16 or 18 game schedule for basketball rather than a full 20 with each team playing twice each season. Could have eliminated the need for instance Sac coming to North Dakota every year and scheduled more regional games, but we will see how it works out. As for our football program, alot is expected of it. Last year was rough, and although I expect to have a better record this season due in part to a weak schedule, I don't know how much better the team will be yet. By all accounts, our defense, which is what we've hung our hat on for 100 years, is as athletic and talented as it has been in quite some time, and there is depth within it too. The defense actually played all right last season. They were prone to giving up the big play, but they were on the field ALOT. Offensively, we've really struggled at QB for a couple of seasons, very badly last season after the starter went down with injury. Most of us are pinning our hopes on a JUCO transfer and/or a redshirt freshman. I don't expect the offense to be high powered next season, but hopefully by the time we join the Big Sky, one of these young QB's will have gotten enough experience and asserted himself as the leader on offense. I think we have alot of potential talent at WR, but I worry that the RB position could be a problem if an injury occurs to our capable, yet not really explosive starter. Long story short, the football program is down right now, but not out. They should be a quality team within a couple years of Big Sky play. In addition to new turf supposedly going into our football arena, the university is in the process of raising funds for an indoor practice facility. Stop by anytime................and beat the 'Yotes!

Why are the QB's going under center so much this spring when they didn't at all last season?

I think he's meaning this year and next year. One this year, and then one next year after Mitchell graduates..................

Not just for football, but for any UND sport other than hockey, does anyone else here get frustrated by the local newspaper coverage (or lack-there-of) of the Univeristy? It seems to me when it comes to reporting Sioux athletics, unless it was written by Schlossman, it is a pretty good bet that whatever you read in the Herald, you could've read a day earlier on Fightingsioux.com..............or two days earlier on Siouxsports.com . Since spring practice has started for multiple schools in the area, the Fargo Forum has done 8 newspaper stories, 13 staff blogs, and two video features on the local team in Fargo. During the same time, the Herald has done 4 newspaper stories and that's it as far as I can tell on Grand Forks' local team....................... I'd like to thank all the posters here at Siouxsports.com and over at Sioux Football Insider for keeping us in the loop...............