tony

Riverman, I'm an NDSU fan (in the interest of full-disclosure) so take any advice that I give with a grain of salt) but... The only advice I'd give is this: - Don't schedule a mid-level GSC team because they'll give you all you want and more. - Don't schedule a mid-level SAC team for the same reason - it'll be worse if scholarships are cut because UND's talent level might go down while theirs will remain the same or get better. - I wouldn't necessarily schedule teams that are the true DII powers - better to schedule the perennially overrated and strapped for cash (Saginaw, the NSIC favorite, Central Missouri, and any PSAC team besides IUP in the top 20).

Well said, UNDvince97-01. As UND tries to bolster it's schedule, I'm trying to figure out which D2 teams UND fans think are top D2 programs. I can think of nine: Texas A&M Kingsville, Valdosta State, Pittsburg State, Indiana (PA), Carson-Newman, Northwest Missouri, and West Georgia. Catawba and Grand Valley have had recent success so I'd include them. How does this list match up with what you guys consider top DII programs? Outside of that list and the NCC, there are only eight current DII teams with more than two playoff wins.

Clayton, this board and the bisonville board have a search function. If you use it (look for McFeel not McFeeley), you'll see that no NDSU fan has claimed that McFeeley is a UND fan. In both boards you'll see Bison fans *defending* McFeeley after he's been critical of NDSU - even if they don't agree with him. OTOH, there are many cases where UND fans have claimed that McFeeley is a big old Bison homer. If you've done the search, you'll already know by then just how wrong they've been. I do wish McFeeley would leave NDSU's opponents alone, including UND. Ripping on NDSU is bad enough but it makes NDSU look bad to have a guy saying that TAMUK, Angelo State, and Delta State are crappy programs. ------------------- DamStrait, I think that you're right. The average NDSU fan does "hate" UND more - at least when I was at NDSU. In my own humble opinion though, UND's administration is much more willing to be petty than NDSU's administration. My favorite examples lately are Glas's comments about stopping the rivalry just to show NDSU a thing or two and a story on UND's parking situation in which the UND administrator couldn't even bring himself to say NDSU, he had to resort to "Our sister university to the south charges twice what we do."

ScottM: "If the Fool'em ever hosts an 'SU cheerleading board, I don't want to see pictures. Ever." Perfectly understandable. No use torturing yourself.

Well, I don't have any idea what a Bradley-Terry thingie is (impressive) but I do know that I almost melted my PC trying to figure out how many steps it would take for each DI-AA team (plus NDSU) to declare they had beat a team, that beat a team, etc..., that beat the DI-AA champs. If these power ranking calculations do the same type of recursion, I don't see how they come up with the rankings so quickly. For the record it took NDSU 15 steps last year (worse than almost any DI-AA team). I'm not sure this qualifies as interesting but the team Valdosta beat that was supposedly a top 25 team in DI-AA needed the same number of steps. I kind of did a triple-take when I saw that they were rated - they were worse than NDSU last year.

1. Massey isn't a poll, he reads in scores, does some regression analysis, and spits out a rating. NDSU is rated so highly because Montana was rated very high before. If Montana and Tusculum keep winning (and the teams that they beat keep winning), NDSU will continue to rise. SDSU had another big win. I think that the combination of those two wins may have bouyed the whole conference somehow. 2. Yeah, Massey rates 699 schools so NDSU is rated pretty highly. For example, the four schools immediately below NDSU in the Massey Ratings are DI-A schools and NDSU would be the 12th rated DI-AA school. What does it mean? Nothing - especially this early in the season. If you really want to freak out, check out who is number 1 in the BCS poll: Holy Cow

Thanks, I did eventually remember where I saw the story - the Bismarck Tribune reported the $20k figure was in a story called, "UND belts Crookston in final game of series."

Thought I read that Crookston got $20,000 to come to Grand Forks this time. Did anybody else read that?

Play Montana next year instead of Crookston so we can see just how bad Montana is...

GLIAC is a 12-team conference with only one open date each (first game of the year). Not many games to be found there. However, the in-region thing is being WAY overstated. There are seven equally-weighted criteria for playoff selection. Only one of them is based on the point system. In-region games are only part of one of the W-L criteria - the new region's playoff committee gets to decide how much weight to give. Greg Drahuschak (DII Guru) tried to explain it once: Here's the link. Basically, the DII playoff selection criteria are the same as they've always been except that they've given the Winona State's a really good reason to avoid playing teams from good conferences. That's good news because UND has more options for scheduling than some people have been saying.

Crap, my mistake. It was Slippery Rock, not Edinboro. Slippery Rock is a decent DII program. NDSU has met Edinboro in the playoffs before so when I was trying to recall the PSAC team that reportedly bailed on the Bison trip, they were the first name that came to mind (I knew it wasn't IUP). From a UND fan's perspective, you might wonder what it would take for UND to get a school like Slippery Rock to come for a visit. From the money perspective, the season tickets sales cover the cost. Any sales beyond that are profit (I think). Point is, that it was getting so hard for NDSU to get decent DII teams that the bottom line was going to suffer one way or another. What would have been better for NDSU: playing a game and making some money or having an open date and not making any? OTOH, the guarantee for Maine wasn't 100k so I'm not sure what all goes into affecting the size teams demand.

Please Sicatoka, don't try to speak for NDSU It cost NDSU nearly six figures to bring in a good DII team - they offered Edinboro that much and they opted to go to Youngstown State instead. If UND is serious about bringing in good non-conference DII teams, they'll run into the same problem that NDSU did. OTOH, going DI should make it easier for NDSU to find a good team to come in - and since we're replacing UND on the schedule, a home and home wouldn't affect NDSU's number of home games meaning that there wouldn't be any guarantee necessary.

Lawkota, I think that the primary reason for UND ending (or threatening to end) the rivalry is that UND wanted to show NDSU the iron finger inside their velvet glove. All Rich did was take the glove off. I kind of doubt that Thomas wanted Glas to be so blunt but, for a number of reasons, I think Glas was speaking for UND on this. Even if Roger Thomas appears on tonight's news with Glas and they retract everything, I'm only going to believe them if their actions back up their words. That means never scheduling DI teams.

WDAY's Steve Hallstrom in his segment "Further Review" was kind of interesting last night - you can watch on WDAY's internet link for about 15 more hours but to preserve it beyond then, here's the transaction:

Big Edit: I agree with fightin'su in his post in UND v Crookston. The game will continue or not depending on what UND decides. Mocking the Herald or UND's schedule, while kind of fun, isn't going to resolve anything so I've edited out the whole text of the original message.

Hats off, Jim. That was dang funny.

Well, look at it from my viewpoint, the GF Herald quotes/summarizes Roger Thomas as saying: (I'd expect a real reporter to ask the follow-ups I put in bold) - Recent changes in the NCC have complicated matters between the Sioux and the Bison. How have they complicate things? - There is no contract, not even an agreement on a meeting between the two teams for next year. It's been reported that NDSU's AD sent you a contract. Are you saying this is not the case? - With South Dakota State announcing it is leaving the NCC and conference schedules changing because of that, all of that needs to be worked out as soon as possible. What needs to be worked out? - We need to have the appropriate number of home games on our schedule for 2004, so this is a little bit of a hang-up. What is an appropriate number of home games? - If UND does agree to play NDSU in Fargo in 2004 in its first year of Division I, an option would be for UND to juggle its other nonconference games to bolster the home schedule. Have you tried this? If NDSU goes to Grand Forks in 2004, will UND have an "adequate number of home games" in 2005? - I think we can get some resolution to this. There are a number of ways it could be done. We (Thomas and NDSU athletic director Gene Taylor) just need to sit down and get it done. The bottom line is that we need to have our team have an adequate home schedule in 2004. So what you're saying is that UND will play NDSU if they give up a home game for you? As an aside, do you see why I consider the Herald more of a newsletter than a newspaper? They basically publish UND's press releases. These aren't hardball questions either, just natural follow-ups to get a person to clarify themselves. Anyway, we're both guilty of inferring things. IMO, logic supports my position more than yours. Thomas never mentions an arbitrary rule about not playing DI-AA teams nor does he say that he's worried about getting knocked out of the playoffs - however, two of his employees mention getting knocked out of the playoffs as a reason for backing out, none cite an internal rule against playing DI teams. Hell, Miles played Kansas in basketball and UND has been sniffing around DI-AA teams for a game for the last couple years. All Thomas says is that the football team needs a home game. However, that doesn't explain the GFH headlines (pretty misleading) and it doesn't explain why UND wouldn't schedule NDSU for basketball.

I'll just ask the question that puzzles Bison fans the most: What is Thomas expecting to accomplish by telling the world that UND can't compete with NDSU anymore? Is he trying to scare UND supporters into forcing Kupchella to go DI? Is he Lobbying the state government? Is he trying to help NDSU get an early start in recruiting season?

Based on NDSU's experience drawing top-flight DII teams to Fargo for a butt-whomping, it's going to cost UND around $100k to bring in a decent team. Top-flight DII teams have many other options that do not include a flight to Grand Forks. Even if you managed to snag Carson-Newman that means very little to anybody in Grand Forks (I'd imagine). Trying to sell C-N as being in the same conference as Newberry isn't going to get pulses racing after next weekend Does Roger Thomas hope to gain anything by going public and all but saying that "we can't schedule NDSU anymore because they'll knock us out of the playoffs?" The story has been in the Herald a couple times, WDAY last night, and I'm sure that it'll be filtering it's way to Bismarck and Minot soon. This is *not* the message that I'd want being spread to potential recruits if I were a UND coach. As a Bison guy, I hope that this story gets some play in all of NDSU's and UND's common recruiting areas. Edit: my mistake, I thought that UND scheduled Newberry for the Potato Bowl rather than Crookston.

If NDSU changed their nickname, I'd want them to be the Barking Squirrels (Lewis and Clark name for prairie dogs). Prairie Dogs might not be a bad name either. Not very fearsome but original. I just like the sound of Barking Squirrels - although I cringe at the thought of an ad that goes "Who let the squirrels out... yip... yip... yipyip". If UND were to change their nickname - not that it will happen, I know that you'd rather raze your university and sow the ground on which it stood with salt first - but if you had to, what would you go with? Mighty Moose? I like that one.

Jim, just to clear something up from a couple days ago. UN-O's AD said that NDSU wouldn't be on the schedule but that doesn't mean that NDSU ever contacted him looking for a game. From what I've heard and seen, NDSU is looking for top DI-AA teams and UND to fill the schedule. If NDSU were to schedule more DII teams, they might as well schedule an NSIC team because they can get both a win and a home game. It's not like having a weak DII team on the schedule will hurt NDSU's playoff chances next year The rest of the schedule is likely to be very tough indeed.

I doubt that a football-only requirement would satisfy the Board of Regents. They might even might slap SDSU's administration down for doing this, but even then they'd at least give SDSU until the end of its exploratory year to find a conference.

Jim, I think that Thomas and Taylor are dickering, not bickering. I don't know what Thomas is trying to bargain for - he was extremely vague in the GF Herald article.