bincitysioux

South Dakota St. will be playing the Gophers in football in 2009. SDSU to play Minnesota in football Big 10 Minnesota is going to be playing former NCC schools in 2006, 2007, and 2009. To me, this is one of the many reasons UND should go DI. We could send our football team on a 3 hour bus ride and get a quarter of a million dollars to play a football game on TV. To me, this sounds like a better scenario than taking an airplane to Ellensburg, WA to play in front of 2,000 people and pray to God that KFGO/Fightingsioux.com doesn't f*#% up the audio feed.

I'm no expert but as far as I know the exploratory year is the first year of the five year trasition. We would still be considered DII, and still be members of the NCC, it'd be our last year in the NCC. We would count as DII to any DI opponents. 2003 was NDSU's exploratory year, their last year in the NCC and DII. I'm sure IowaBison could explain it alot better.

Looks like Sac St. is making a substantial commitment to upgrade their facilities. University secures $25 million for Recreation Center, arena projects

I'd say it is all purely speculation, although I do believe that an announcement is forthcoming. A 16 team league is pretty large for a division that has a playoff system and those 16 teams would be fighting for one auto-bid. Cal-Poly has been asked in the past to join the Big Sky and declined. They have a good thing going with the Big West. I'd think that Davis feels the same way. I'm not sure that Southern Utah is a school that the Big Sky would be interested in, although they do have geography in their favor. I fear that South Dakota is going to be the odd man out in all of this. If they do intend to move it is possible that they'll be the lone Dakota school seeking entry into the Mid-Con. This summer, I plan on taking over as commissioner of the Big Sky, the Big West, the Great West, and the WAC. My first order of business will be to send Sac. St and Portland St. from the Sky and into the Big West & the Great West for football. Next, I'll have Northern Arizona join the WAC, but let them continue to play I-AA football also in the Great West (If the Big East allows members Georgetown & Villanova to play I-AA football this shouldn't be a problem with the WAC ). Then I'll convince San Diego to offer FB schollies and join the GWFC as well. This will bring GWFC membership to 7, and make it quite geographically friendly. After I finish my tweaking of the southwest U.S., I'll bring in UND, NDSU, USD, and SDSU to join the Big Sky, creating the solid and relatively travel friendly 10 member Mid-Major conference that it should be! Big West: Sac St., Portland St., Cal-Poly, Cal-Davis, Pacific, Irvine, Long Beach, Northridge, Santa Barbara, Riverside, Fullerton WAC: Northern Arizona, Nevada, Utah St, La Tech, Hawaii, NM St., Fresno St., Boise St, SJSU, Idaho Great West: Cal-Poly, Cal-Davis, SUU, Northern Arizona, Portland St., Sac St., San Diego Big Sky: UND, NDSU, USD, SDSU, Montana, Montana St, Idaho St., Eastern Washington, Weber, Northern Colorado

Go easy there bigmrg. Bigears is probably one of those NDSU fans that the Bisonville.com administrator had to ban this week because he can't stop them from talking about UND on his NDSU message board.

Everything I said is 100% fact.

Like I said, I'm simply speculating. SDSU & NDSU have tried & failed, tried & failed to gain acceptance to the Big Sky. I just think that a package could be more attractive to the BSC if it included the largest University in the Dakotas that happens to have hands down the nicest facilities in the Dakotas and the largest tv market in the Dakotas.

Actually, the way things are shaping up it appears that it could very well be possible that UND will in fact secure SDSU & NDSU the bid from the Big Sky that they've been seeking for years. Purely speculation of course.

For your sake, I hope that the NDSU administration does not share your views. As per The Forum, they obviously don't as Gene Taylor and Tom Bunning we're apparently discussing a football game on Oct. 21st of this year. The NDSU administration realizes, and so should you and other NDSU fans & alumni, that by not competing with UND that NDSU is missing out on a virtually guaranteed sellout at the Fargodome every other year (NDSU hasn't had one since the last time they played UND, not even at their DI debut against non-scholarship Valparaiso), the biggest drawing basketball game at the BSA every single year, a football game on statewide TV, cable, and national satellite television every year, and two basketball games on statewide TV, cable, and national satellite television every year. Not to mention the extra newspaper coverage that they'd receive in Bismarck, Minot, and the rest of the western part of ND that is normally alot less than what they receive for all other games. The brass at NDSU wants UND to move up. They'd be stupid not to.

It's getting pretty late. I'm guessing we're only gonna have a 10 game schedule this year. 5 away, and 5 at home.

Unfortunately, I worry that the Sioux will not be as good as last year. We've lost the best defensive player in DII football (Digger Anderson), probably one of the best offensive linemen in all of college football (Chris Kuper), and of the most prolific kickers in the history of the NCAA (Jeff Glas). Not to mention the loss of our defensive coordinator. We haven't had a dominating running back (like the caliber of USD's Stephen Logan, or UNO's Jamar Day) since Phillip Moore and I don't see one taking over this year. Hopefully Manke steps up at QB and plays like he did at the end of last year.

Excellent points. Hindsight is 20/20, but if you're right about those figures, and if had we gone DI the same time that SDSU and NDSU did, and got the $300,000 guarantee football game with Minnesota for 2006 (NDSU was reluctant to take that game for 2006, I'm sure UofM would be just as if not more interested in bringing the Sioux to the Twin Cities) and made the Frozen Four in the last two years, then you can figure that by October 21st of this year UND will have missed out on over $1,000,000. Then figure in the 25% increase in home football attendance that NDSU & SDSU have seen since going DI-AA that number is even greater.

It is total chaos over at Bisonville. Tony has identified a group of members and forbidden them to even utter the letters UND for the next month, threatening to ban them if they bring it up. In turn this group of rebels are so upset about not being able to discuss UND that one of them is calling Tony a dictator as opposed to a moderator. I find it all hilarious, seeing as how they've moved on, don't know who UND is, and SDSU is their biggest rival.

The Big Ten doesn't sponsor hockey either, but I am sure that they veiw a facility like the Kohl Center as a tremendous asset. Is the Kohl Center a hockey arena or a basketball arena? I can't remember. If UND got into the Big Sky the Ralph instantly becomes the top basketball facility in the conference, the Betty perhaps becomes the best Volleyball facility in the conference, and the Alerus becomes the third or fourth best football facility in the conference. Another "have" that could work in UND's favor in receiving consideration from the Big Sky is TV market. Several UND football and basketball games are broadcast each year in ND, MN, SD, and Canada. This could be attractive to the Big Sky in that they could be gaining exposure in a new region.

Water-skiing is the best summer-time sport to participate in. Legion baseball and the F-M Redhawks (independent pro baseball team) are pretty big in North Dakota.

Bummer.

I thought that it was impossible for a school to have a conference invite when the move up to DI.

That's kind of weird isn't it? That sort of shows a little bit of indecisiveness on Lennon's part, IMHO. They also said that Manke is #1 going into practice. (-----AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!!!!)

Another univesity moves up with a conference invite in hand. Presbyterian makes the move to Division I

Well that kinda goes back to the wanting to go DI-AA but not I-A. I realize that our women's run of total domination would come to an end if we moved up but I think they could still be competetive in a conference like the Big Sky, Mid-Con, or a DI NCC. I think everything would go to hell in a handbasket real quick, if all of the sudden we were asked to compete against to compete against Brigham Young, Utah, San Diego St., Boise, St., Nevada, etc. Those don't sound like UND peers to me. But Montana, Montana St., NDSU, SDSU, Idaho St., schools like that are closer peer institutions to UND than are Crookston, Mary, and Mesa St.

Although I am a huge advocate of a move to I-AA, I'd never be in favor of UND going I-A, whether NDSU went or not. I am a football guy, and I want to compete for championships. We do that now, and I firmly believe we have positioned ourselves to do that in I-AA. But I-A is a completely different beast. I admit that one of the reasons I am for a move is because I really miss the head-to-head competition with NDSU, but if they turned out to be so jealous of UND that they felt the need to attempt to one up UND again and squash their rich football tradition by going I-A, I say have at it. I'll take the basketball matchups and the $150,000 guarantee to play them in football. I agree that barring an event from the book of Revelations, there is no way that NDSU, UND, SDSU ever gets into the Mountain West. The WAC is a long ways off for NDSU, too. Maybe down the road if say one or both Montana schools get in it could happen. But it would also require a couple current members to leave. Even then, Sac State, Northern Arizona, Davis, or Poly would be more attractive than a Dakota school.

Before Tony shut down/wiped out the forum it had 49 total threads. 47 of them were started by Bison fans.

Thanks for the link!

With only 9 confirmed games, I wonder if UND hasn't been trying to get out of the Mesa game. That would mean they're looking for two games, not one. Or, maybe both Mesa and UND are ungodly slow about releasing their schedules. I haven't heard of any quality openings other than what we talked about earlier in the thread, Tusculum would be a name opponent, Charleston was willing to travel but that would be a blowout for sure. UND really missed the boat earlier in the year when Pitt St. was looking for a home game. You couldn't ask for a better non-conference game than that, whether it was on the road or at the Alerus.

I'd say it comes down to the AD, but the coach has alot of input. I doubt UND was the next option after UM, they were trying for Eastern Washington and Northern Iowa, but apparently cooler heads may be prevailing and the idea was tossed around. They would have preferred any scholarship I-AA come to Fargo, but they were only offered away games for 2006. If they had to travel they made the smart move in traveling a short distance for $300,000. I think Coach Bohl has been pretty vocal about not wanting to be associated with UND, and has also said he would have preferred not to play Minnesota this year. But Taylor was getting desperate, and Bunning is not Roger Thomas, so that's what I think opened the door to at least throw the idea around. Bunning has showed interest in renewing the rivalry. Ain't gonna happen for a couple years though, I don't think.