jimdahl

I think I fixed it in between... I was just slow to post because I was chasing down some other weird connectivity problems (of course, right in the middle of the biggest road series, sigh). Though the board now does auto-DST correction, some people who have been around long enough still had some manual settings that overrode those, so if you had DST manually enabled, the auto-setting didn't disable it. I changed everyone, even the old-timers, over to the shiny new automatic mode.

This is a little hard to watch, at times. We'd have great field position, had the punt return not been -20yds.

That's a killer. Was starting to seem like UND stood a chance, before that.

Status update (from Wayne Nelson):

I only saw the first few minutes on tv (hope to get back to it later), but the stands were as empty as I've ever seen. Not shocking, the casual fans have completely detached from the FB team this season...

UND wins the coin toss... Ref: What goal you do you want to defend? UND #71: North! Ref: [pause].... I don't have a compass. UND #71: That way [points]

Lemme see if I can update this... Winners USD - Lower travel costs, opponents that will be just as big a draw as BSC would have been, playing in their recruiting area USD Fans - Can easily travel to a lot of away games. SDSU - Gets the real rivalry back and a nearby travel partner. Summit - Managed to get the more geographically attractive of the U's, thus staving off concerns about its size. Sioux Falls/South Dakota in general - The new hub of the Summit. Frequent high-profile tournaments. Losers Big Sky Presidents - They've got to feel like they got rope-a-doped. Would they have invited UND had they known? Win some, lose some UND Win - If USD to MVFC had been known, would BSC have still invited UND? UND is secure with a signed affiliation with a great conference. If USD had received an outright invite to MVFC, this might not have happened. UND Lose - Geographically alone in the Big Sky, no natural rivals. NDSU Win - Adds one more regional, old NCC foe to their conferences; one more drivable opponent. NDSU Lose - Lost their travel partner and the forced rivalry will surely take a back seat, to SDSU fans, to the real rivalry with USD. At a minimum, the reciprocal 1:1 arch rivalry is done. MVFC - I have to think this through. They got pressured into expansion they didn't want, but avoided the unlikely but devastating outcome of Summit Football.

The way this all developed is just so weird. Here's another quote, from yesterday: USD hunt for league edges near Big Sky (Argus Leader) Monday, Big Sky said agreement with USD was done, just needed to be rubber stamped. Tuesday, USD athletic director said deal is in hands of the Board of Regents, but MVFC isn't even on the table, no discussions. Wednesday, local S.D. press say repeatedly that Big Sky is a done deal. Anyway, here's the first official press mention: USD expected to join Missouri Valley football, stay in Summit (Argus Leader)

Yep. This theory that MVFC secretly wanted USD but couldn't offer until UND was out of the way just doesn't make sense to me. The two weren't selling themselves as a pair -- USD went to Summit 18 months ago, and would've similarly gone to MVFC if invited. If true, that USD being about to jump ship on the Summit managed to pressure MVFC into making an offer is great for USD; but it's seemingly quite unlikely that any similar offer would have ever been available to UND (a similar threat was clearly there, in that Summit moved up its visit, but as far as I know MVFC didn't care). In that case, UND's choices were: Summit + FB independent or Big Sky all sports. If rumors are true, still surprising to me how both the Big Sky leadership and South Dakota media had it so wrong as recently as this evening. If it goes that way, it would seem like the Board had a hand in it, that exiting the Summit wasn't as trivial as expected, or that the hypothetical MVFC invitation even caught USD completely off guard.

Nope. As I said above, "even if that is what happened (and good for USD if it did!), the MVFC seemingly didn't have similar concerns about UND being snatched up." It's weird (if true), because USD and UND weren't selling themselves as a pair. USD accepted their Summit invite without any concern about UND; and there was nothing preventing MVFC from making a similar invite, which USD surely would have accepted. The suggestion that MVFC secretly wanted USD but needed to get UND out of the way first is kind of crazy to me.

Being isolated wouldn't be awesome, but it's better than being an independent in football. It would be somewhat surprising if USD managed to secure an invite out of MVFC in 3 days, in that the MVFC hadn't shown any interest in USD in the previous 18 months so why care now that they're about to be snatched up by Big Sky? However, even if that is what happened (and good for USD if it did!), the MVFC seemingly didn't have similar concerns about UND being snatched up. If USD's announcement tomorrow is an invite to MVFC, it's pretty surprising how no one saw it coming (Big Sky leadership were convinced it was a done deal on Monday, which means USD leadership told them so; and South Dakota media were convinced USD to Big Sky was a done deal, and repeated such a dozen times, as recently as their online chat late this afternoon and blog posts like this yesterday). If that's the way it goes, makes you wonder what happened at that Board meeting (insistence on loyalty to SDSU?) Since the next step in USD to Big Sky was a press conference tomorrow or Friday, and BSC officials and S.D. media were convinced that's what was happening as recently as this afternoon, Occam's Razor still suggests that's what the press conference is about until someone with more credibility than a couple anonymous message board posters say so.

Southern Utah, North Dakota join Big Sky

Huh -- I can't duplicate. That's a 3rd party advertising server, but one that isn't included anywhere in the forum page (which only has a single Google Ads block). My best guess at this point is a cache issue. To clear it (won't erase your history or cookies or anything), click the wrench in the upper right, click options, on the "under the hood" tab, click "clear browsing data", check ONLY "Empty the cache" (uncheck all the others), change the period to "everything" and hit "clear browsing data".

Sorry about that. Sigh.

There always seem to be quite a few fans in Sioux jerseys at Mettlers... I've never stayed anywhere other than that Holiday Inn(?) just on the other side of Mettlers from the arena. Nice walking distance to everything, including the arena. But, when I used to go to Mankato every year (a decade or so ago, now), you used to have book that one early...

Check out this magic... (thanks fightingsioux.com...) <p> <object width="480" height="301" id="embed" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"><param name="movie" value="http://www.fightingsioux.com/mediaPortal/embed.swf" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="flashVars" value="catid=9814&id=726594&server=http://www.fightingsioux.com/XML/titanv3/&pageurl=http://www.fightingsioux.com/mediaPortal/&jtv=13500&skin=13500&gaa=UA-8563605-2&tremorprogid=49c162c7563e1&nlwa=http://track1.neulion.com/jtvsp/13500/" /><embed name="embed" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" src="http://www.fightingsioux.com/mediaPortal/embed.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="301" quality="high" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" flashVars="catid=9814&id=726594&server=http://www.fightingsioux.com/XML/titanv3/&pageurl=http://www.fightingsioux.com/mediaPortal/&jtv=13500&skin=13500&gaa=UA-8563605-2&tremorprogid=49c162c7563e1&nlwa=http://track1.neulion.com/jtvsp/13500/"></embed></object>

Welcome back, and thank you for your service!

Update -- I redid the blog scheme on the front page a few weeks or so back. When I was working on it, it was pretty theoretical because blogs weren't very active, but I think the benefits of it are really shining right now. You see all the blogs that have a new recent story, sorted by their most recent stories, with just a few headlines per blog to balance the display between more and less prolific blogs. So, there are never too many stories from any individual blog, but the number of stories displayed increases when more blogs are active. I also got football blog scanning working (it was previously hockey only) so you can see either: 1) all blog stories (front page), 2) hockey only (hockey page), or 3) football only (football page). Enjoy.

Future of REA logos explained - The Dakota Student Doesn't explain quite as much as the title implies, but...

Working on it You can "like" threads (see the bottom) which adds them to your Facebook news feed, but can only give "rep" to individual posts (which only raises their stature within the forum). Clearly "liking" individual posts is desirable...

If you can't get that working you can usually find an online version of one of the N.D. radio stations, e.g.: KFYR (thanks to Bob's tip above)

Yahoo opens 'chicken coop' green data center North Dakota = lots of cold air + wind (not to mention cheap labor, and existing traditional and potential green energy supplies)

South Dakota audio

You HAVE been paying attention

We talked a little about this back in '07. This website is neither bound by the agreement nor using any UND-licensed logos or imagery, so don't have to change anything at any particular time. That said, we want to be good members of the UND community and not intentionally annoy UND (more than usual); and, trying to be a UND sports information hub loses some value if the site is no longer discoverable and recognizable as associated with UND athletics. So, we'll probably largely follow their nickname moves. You already see fightingsioux.com de-emphasizing "Sioux" on all their newer pages and switching to straight "North Dakota" branding. Rather than go down that path, perhaps we should just sell naming rights e.g. "The Jiffy Lube UND Fan Forum", until a new nickname is chosen.