82SiouxGuy

You really can't see why Sioux football players might not appreciate even a chance of being called Suhaki?

The nickname ends next summer. The decision had to be made by midnight tonight.

No decisions have been made. The conference had to wait to find out that Montana was staying, and are probably waiting to find out what else will happen with the WAC. Then they will take the time to work out the details on conference play in all sports.

Jackson talked very fondly of his time at UND when he was back last year for the Great Conversation. He seemed to be very interested in the University. I don't know if that will translate into anything or not. But he could pull strings behind the scenes if he wants to help. He certainly knows a lot of people with money that may be willing to donate to one of his causes.

Congratulations to Coach Tim Tibesar on winning the Grey Cup.

Nothing has been decided. They had to wait for Montana's decision, and they are probably waiting to see if anything else shakes out with the WAC. You'll have to wait like the rest of us to see how the final set-up looks.

The official process hasn't started yet. There is just a lot of discussion among fans. So the answer is no, there isn't a leading candidate or even a group of candidates as of yet.

I believe that it has been said that it is nothing for someone to travel 4 to 6 hours for a Hockey game, and that we should be able to accomplish the same thing with football when the product is right. Division II obviously wasn't that right product, and so far UND hasn't put that product on the field during the transition. The trend of having 50-70% of regular season attendance show up for a first round playoff game is still the same.

If you really believe that then you are less intelligent than your average post here at SiouxSports, and that's saying a lot.

The same trends happen in Division II playoffs, yet NDSU fans discounted them and claimed it was just poor attendance at UND games. Those same NDSU fans said that it wouldn't happen at NDSU playoff games. Could it be that they were wrong?

Everyone is pretty sure that it won't involve 10 conference games. Montana wants 8, Montana tends to get what it wants. An even number is better than an odd since it gives everyone an equal number of home and away games. So most people figure that it will be 8 conference games, and if some of the teams are having trouble filling their schedule there is a chance that they might play another game against a Big Sky team that won't be counted as a conference game.

Fargo MSA population estimate 2009: 200,102 Grand Forks MSA population estimate 2009: 97,190 Might that help explain attendance figures? 12,000 doesn't look so good because NDSU fans keep talking about how they were going to sell out.

But hockey doesn't matter. It's a niche sport. ;-)

His third year as head coach at UND, not his third year as a head coach. And the school was not in the middle of transitioning to a higher division.

UND and NDSU couldn't schedule a game with Roger Thomas and Taylor as the ADs, NDSU fans said it was Thomas' fault. They couldn't schedule a game when Tom Bunning and Taylor were the ADs, NDSU fans said it was Bunning's fault. Now they can't schedule a game with Faison and Taylor and NDSU fans say it's Faison's fault. I see 2 constants, Taylor is part of the negotiations, and NDSU fans blame UND.

Only a limited number of season tickets are sold for $40. Most are more than that. I believe that ours are $75 or something like that. The $40 season tickets will probably go away now that UND is in the Big Sky. I'm not going to predict what an individual ticket price will be.

You must be up past your bedtime. You better be careful so that your mother doesn't catch you.

Nothing official is going to come out of the Legislature this time around. Any pressure is going to come from individual officials. And the Legislature is going to get requests for several times the current budget surplus so they aren't going to spend it for a football game.

Jim Dahl's post right after Hammersmith. At the time the schedule was made it was in UND's best interest not to schedule a Division IAA team.

Season ticket numbers will improve with the new conference, especially when Montana is coming to town. I don't think that UND should jump into a bad deal just to get NDSU on the schedule. Faison needs to make sure that the deal makes sense for UND.

In my post I clearly said that we don't want the Legislature involved on an official level (try reading it before answering it). But as others have noted, the elected officials are involved. Think of state government as a corporation. The governor is the CEO, citizens are the stockholders. Higher education is one department, and it reports to the CEO (governor). So if the governor wants to make a call, or say something while he is on a site visit, he is going to do it. It is the responsibility of the governor to do what is best for the citizens of the state. If he feels that it is best to get those 2 schools competing against each other in football then he is going to put on some pressure to get that done. Other elected officials are also capable of putting on subtle or unofficial pressure.

You're fooling yourself if you don't believe that officials like the governor don't get involved in situations like this. We definitely don't want the legislature involved on any kind of an official basis. Things get done behind the scenes. The governor or someone else will start putting pressure on both sides to make something happen. Too many people across the state want it to happen. So it will and the UND-NDSU rivalry will get restarted.

If you look at playoff attendance figures all around Division II I think you will find that attendance is lower than you would think, especially for early rounds. People probably don't expect good games in early rounds and they don't have a lot of time to sell advance tickets. Later in the playoffs people get more excited because they expect good games. You can't plan a stadium around playoff attendance. You have to plan a stadium around what you can project for regular season games.

A lot of us wouldn't be too excited about giving up our seats on that end either.

I can't beleive that the coaches don't know enough to sign some big guys. They must be complete morons not to understand that they need bigs. Do you really believe that? Quality bigs have become scarce in all of basketball. The NBA can't find enough quality bigs to get one on every team. Every DI school is looking for quality bigs. There aren't a lot of them around. They aren't going to a transitioning team without a conference. That's what UND was until about 2 weeks ago. Even as a low level Division I team they are going to struggle to get quality bigs. So they over compensate by getting the best players they can sign and try to do as much with them as they can. That's how a lot of low level Division I schools have to play it. And once in a while they will get lucky when they take a chance on a big guy with "potential".