jimdahl

I haven't had a chance to see any of UND's games this year so am just working off published reports. The poundings of Crookston and Mesa State don't necessarily mean much, and the huge loss to Central Washington is a concern. Also, UNC was hanging in pretty tough with Montana last week, so they seem reasonably for real. I guess the strategy will be to pound it out on the ground again, rotating between Mahmoud and Beatty. Keep UNC's defense on the field, play a bruising game, and all those ground game cliches.

Here's an editorial you'll never see in the Fargo Forum: http://www.greeleytrib.com/article.php?sid=10347

You make claims like "UND sees the relationship with NDSU as a zero sum game" and complain how Grand Forks and UND fans are disparaging Fargo and NDSU. However, the only disparaging I see anywhere on this message board is coming from you against UND and Grand Forks. I've quoted portions of your last post above. Every post of yours ends with a tirade about how Fargo is the best and NDSU is better than UND. I've seen no UND fans touting UND's superiority. Instead we're just trying to have a conversation about the benefits and challenges NDSU will face, and the implications of NDSU's and UNC's moves for UND.

Good point on the new rules. There's been a lot of talk in the NCAA about breaking D-I up in new ways. Nice analysis of the ideal situation. However, if we can't achieve that situation, I'm not sure how being in a D-II conference with Duluth, Mankato, St Cloud, Moorhead is better than being in a D-IAA conference with NDSU, UNC, SDSU, USD and maybe a couple others... Also, being D-IAA in a less than ideal situation gets us closer to that ideal than staying D-II. Being D-IAA without a conference affiliation is definitely the worst option, though.

That article repeats a lot of the negatives we've talked about here: NDSU is going to have a tough time going it alone, attendance will not rise and costs will go up. NDSU also doesn't have any programs it can drop, so it simply has to get more money. NDSU is clearly taking this longer than necessary transition period in the hopes that other NCC schools will join them. I may have to eat my words here, but I doubt it: some NDSU fans are deluding themselves thinking Big Sky or any other premiere D-IAA conference has any interest in letting NDSU (or UND) join. That said, I still think UND can move, but only if they can get enough of the NCC to move at once to form a new D-IAA NCC. That solves the conference affiliation problem, cuts costs, keeps traditional rivals, etc... UND definitely should not move without a conference affiliation in hand first.

Sources indicate that last Spring Gemini thought that they would be producing jerseys for both Michigan and North Dakota this season with a Nike-swoosh on them. I think the only implication for Gemini of the Nike branding is that they don't get to produce Gemini-branded replicas.

Huh -- right you are. This page says you need 14 to be D-I: http://www.ncaa.org/eligibility/faqs/faqs_general.html A quick check of GoBison.com reveals that NDSU currently sponsors 14.

I think making ice involves burying a bunch of pipes/cooling equipment in the concrete floor. So, it basically involves creating an entirely new floor (which is why it's so much cheaper to build it into a building than to try to retrofit a building). I agree that NDSU moving to D-I eliminates the possibility of adding hockey for a long time. UND spends $1.9 million to run it's men's hockey program, and there's no way that NDSU can add men's without women's in this era of Title IX. Especially if financial issues surrounding the move to D-I force NDSU to drop some non-revenue sports, adding a new sport will be a hard sell for a while.

I think they're talking about Minnesota because hockey and football at U of M are two of the only profitable sports (I think there might be one other?) Since football is the only sport with 1AA, any D-I school has the same obligations in other sports. If Minnesota's massively popular football and hockey programs can't support all the non-revenue programs, that may be a hint to the difficulties involved. (Minnesota, of course, has a theoretical capacity of like 60,000 at it's football games -- it's no Michigan, but it's no UND or NDSU either). If Minnesota football (the only program classified differently from NDSU's potential affiliation) were non-profitable, you'd have a point that their expenses are higher being I-A instead of I-AA. I think the cold hard reality of modern college sports at the D-I level is that non-revenue sports are under immense pressure at all but the most successful schools. That's a vast difference from D-II where costs are much lower and UND and NDSU are among the highest revenue/most successful programs. They're clearly not perfect comparisons because every school has its own revenue and cost structures, but U of M and U of Montana are interesting looks at some other D-I and D-IAA programs.

For those who didn't see it: http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforkshe...ald/4013676.htm This argument makes NO sense. UND shouldn't move to D-I because there are too many scandals in D-I? UND is completely in control of whether or not it follows NCAA rules. If UND follows all the rules now, why would it start cheating just because it was D-I? Staying D-II to avoid the "scandal-ridden D-I" just doesn't make sense to me.

Sorry I was unclear -- obviously most D-IAA programs have more name recognition than most D-II programs. I just meant that moving to D-IAA doesn't mean NDSU is going to start playing Notre Dame or Wisconsin. Are Bison fans really going to get more excited about playing Oral Roberts (an admittedly more famous school) than playing Northern Colorado (a traditional rival)? I agree 100% on the importance of the Divisions. I would consider a UND women's basketball season much more successful if they won a single first round game in the NCAA Division I tournament than if they won the D-II championship. As far as Big Sky -- they've stated that they are not interested in NDSU joining because of the travel. I think the lack of conference affiliation and possible outcome may be one of the parts of this transition that most surprise NDSU fans. While it's possible that Big Sky may relent, I think some of the more likely outcomes could be very disappointing. My ideal situation is very close to yours: get enough of the NCC to jump that they can form their own conference (or half-conference, e.g. Big Sky East) such that the jump to I-AA puts less economic pressure on all of those who choose to jump.

How quickly Bison fans forget that the only reason the school is moving to D-IAA is because they couldn't convince the taxpayers of Fargo to fund a D-I hockey team. This is another glory-grabbing opportunity for NDSU's president to make "big improvements" on his watch. Fortunately for him, changing divisions didn't require a vote of the people like building a hockey arena did. Is there any doubt that if NDSU were starting up a $2m D-I hockey program this year that they would not even be considering this jump?

I've made this point myself many times in regard to hockey. It's true that in the early 90s there were plenty of hockey games with only 3000-4000 people. Now they fill up the 11,000+ seat arena every game. While my gut instinct is to attribute it to the success of the program and the excitement over the new facility, we certainly can't prove that it's not a permanent demographic shift. I actually have the same question about NDSU: How many fans will show up to watch NDSU play Oral Roberts? Assuming that NDSU will continuously sell out the FargoDome is a BIG assumption -- NDSU can't do it now playing traditional rivals. Are NDSU fans really THAT much more excited to be hosting unknown D-IAA teams? Will dramatically rising ticket prices (to offset new costs) not put downward pressure on attendance? Though NDSU hasn't won a national championship in a few years, they haven't had a losing season since 1975. Who knows how fans will react to losing against no-name D-IAA schools. Much like I've often argued that UND should not jump to D-IAA without more of the NCC, I think NDSU's ONLY chance of this working out economically is if they can bring enough of their traditional rivals with them. Familiar NCC opponents help both sides of the economic equation: sell more tickets and lower costs.

You can view the other thread for a lively discussion of the move. I think most UND fans' primary concern is the cost. The way NDSU is moving (no conference affiliation) adds tremendous cost to the program and there is some debate from the fan perspective about whether this will result in superior games/opponents. Clearly if a lot of the NCC could move as a group, that would dramatically reduce the expense, just leaving the question of what benefit the schools receive for that additional expense. Is being a small school in D-IAA a product that North Dakotans want more than being a top tier school in D-II? Are they willing to pay more for tickets, have athletic budget shortfalls, and probably cut a few non-revenue sports to achieve that? Personally, I suspect the majority answer to those questions is, "yes", and hence UND will cave to the tremendous pressure to move up that it's fans and media will create in the coming months and years.

First, I agree entirely that there seem to be problems in the division system. However, that's an NCAA-wide problem that UND can't solve. Forced to make decisions within the existing system, I think the right thing to do is follow the group of teams that UND wants to play. Sure, I wish that Division II was the same as it was 20 years ago and that we were playing against Montana, NDSU, Northern Iowa, UNC, etc... However, UND can't make that happen. We have to decide whether to follow our traditional opponents to D-IAA or stay in D-II and play Crookston and Duluth. On to the NCAA's viewpoint: I don't think they see it as a problem. Basketball (the only other sport REALLY important to the NCAA) benefits from having a diverse field of 300+ teams in D-I. The Cinderellas who win a round or two in the NCAA tournament make the NCAA a LOT of money and draw in fans across the country for the entire tournament. Sure, no one expects NDSU or UND to ever win the NCAA basketball tournament, but just making it a few times would generate many more basketball fans in N.D. I don't think D-I will have the same "watering down" problems as D-II. In D-I, Duke will just choose not to play against UND or NDSU. No problem. Staying in D-II leaves UND with the problem that there's no one BUT Crookston to play. Also, the watering down of D-II and flight of the top programs has led to a situation in which many of the teams want to lower scholarship limits, a problem that will never occur in D-I.

We'd clearly need to find a couple more members to make a D-IAA NCC, and I don't know who those members would be. That said, I really think if we can make a D-IAA NCC, then UND should jump. If we settled on that as a plan, we could probably get NDSU to wait (or at least not join some other conference) while we rallied USD/SDSU and tried to find another couple members. Jumping to D-IAA as the NCC would dramatically reduce the associated expense and let us move forward with some traditional rivals. The bottom line is that D-II is changing. The best members are all leaving for D-IAA and the bottom is filling with former D-III teams ascending. The editorial in the Herald a few days ago by a formal football coach was very interesting -- his take was that UND should have jumped twenty years ago when our non-conference games were still against teams like Montana and UNLV. If we stay D-II, we will play more and more teams like Crookston and our talent pool will quickly dilute as even more players head to neighborhood D-IAA teams.

It was very interesting to me to read press coverage today (Saturday). The administration of NDSU seems to be intentionally slowing down it's transition with the hope that the other premiere NCC schools (particularly UND) will join them. That's really the only way the move makes sense -- if the top of the NCC all moves. It would maintain rivalries and keep costs manageable. NDSU also pledged not to move without a conference affiliation, yet no conference seems willing to take them. They keep talking Big Sky, but what is their incentive to fly to Fargo for games? I think three years from now NDSU will be a member of the Mid-Continent conference. Is playing Oral Roberts, Southern Utah, Western Illinois, etc... really that much more impressive to Fargo fans than playing Mankato, UNC, and UND? I hope so, because travel costs will have quadrupled for that "upgrade". Also, I hope NDSU fans are comfortable with having to cut a lot of programs. Budget problems will inevitably force them to cut non-revenue sports because of the increased expense of those non-revenue sports. Back to my original point in this post -- I think if a large part of the NCC (5 members?) moved to D-IAA at the same time it would make sense for UND to be a part of that. Travel costs wouldn't change much, we'd have traditional rivals. Scholarship limits would increase somewhat, would be the biggest expense. I wish NDSU had tried harder to build support among the NCC's "big" schools to get a simultaneous move, even if it meant NDSU losing a little of the prestige of being the first to "upgrade".

In the press conference NDSU pledged to continue it's rivalry with UND. Moving to Division I-AA won't magically make NDSU a better football team overnight. So, the question is: will NDSU really schedule games against a Division II opponent who is likely to beat them? For a while, the rivalry will exist, but in general you don't play lower conference schools who actually stand a chance of beating you. It's not good for your record. Of course, they're ineligible for post-season play for five years, so it won't matter much. In the longer run, will having a D-I football down in Fargo hurt UND's recruiting significantly?

As anticipated, NDSU has decided to move to Division I-AA in football and Division I in all other sports. I'll have more news as it develops (though I guess there aren't really many other details worth reporting). Though the decision had already been made, Northern Colorado also announced their intent to leave the NCC today. Done with the news, and on to the opinion front: If NDSU and UNC are successful in D-I, it seems likely that UND will have to more seriously consider moving within a few years.

Since UNC is actually further along (having already decided to go D-I), they will finish 1st. NDSU, being next closest to a D-I team will clearly finish 2nd. UND, as a non-supporter of the D-I movement, will finish 4th at best, behind schools with bigger visions.

So wait.... Goon. You're trying to tell me that you just go to the message board WITHOUT reading the site? I'm a little off-topic here, but Glenn will probably let it ride. I find this whole "NCC is falling apart" thing fascinating. UNC is gone for sure. Looks like NDSU also. It's crazy. I've been working on an article analyzing the financial impact for UND to jump to D-I, but it's been a tad more complex than I initially imagined... I'm quite curious, because I certainly haven't made up my mind yet whether UND should jump or not. The Hurled hasn't exactly been covering the issue well, either.

That little glitch was my fault. The normally low level of reliability around here gets even lower in the summertime when I get to experiment more. Unfortunately, a new program wiped out the whole site so I had to restore it. That involved two steps: Pull it off a May backup (hence the part 2) Reapply the incremental changes since then (should now be complete) I promise to be more careful in season

My understanding is that those numbers are the amount of revenue that the venues guarantee to the NCAA. If that's the case, it makes sense for smaller market venues to make higher guarantees. The NCAA has few fears that a regional in Minneapolis will make it enough $$$. A regional in Grand Forks, on the other hand, has to make higher guarantees to appear competitive.

That is he signs again, not quits (re-signs, resigns, very tricky). http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news/ap/200206...wild-roche.html

It's nice to see a well-funded organization primarily devoted to hockey. UND is (finally) doing a pretty good job on it's web site, but the guy still has to split his time between all 16 or whatever varsity sports. Sports schedules wallpaper - clever. A monthly calendar that included all sports, but changed each month, would be pretty cool. Though clearly outside of REA's interests.