NDSU grad

Hockey may be more popular than I'm willing to admit, but it is not nearly as popular as college wrestling. I can't back this up with attendance numbers, but the media coverage around here is dominated with stories about Cael Sanderson etc. I guess it's possible hockey could gain that popularity if one of the universities added hockey, but I don't think that will ever happen IMO

Just as your previous post can't refute my statement. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I can't speak for the other regent universities, but the chances of ISU adding hockey are about as good as UND adding wrestling. They cut men's swimming and baseball two years ago, and just recently announced a cut of about $500,000 from the athletic department. Of course, when your athletic budget is about 28 million, that might not hurt so much.

There's so much interest that the Iowa High School Athletic Association doesn't sponsor it. But I guess I don't know anything since I actually live in Iowa.

ISU's club hockey is pretty good I think. I really don't know what their attendance is like though. There will be a blip about them in the student paper every once in a while though. Scott M. I really don't know what you're inferring to when you speak of myopia, but tell me why you think college hockey would be successful in Iowa. Based on the USHL attendance figures, I don't think 3000 fans/game would be a moneymaker for an athletic department after you figure the additional scholarships that would need to be added for womens sports.

I don't think hockey would be that popular in Iowa. Believe it or not, wrestling is king down here, and is a very close second to basketball as the most popular winter sport. The wrestling coaches at ISU and UI have alot of influence and I don't think hockey would get a second look.

You don't have to tell me about fans in Green Bay. My wife and I visited some friends in the upper peninsula of Michigan for Thanksgiving last year. On the way back home (Ames, IA) we ran into stand-still traffic about 45 miles north of Green Bay at 9:30 in the morning. Unbelievable. Also, NDSU did lose playoff games at Dacotah Field. We lost the last game played there to Pitt State in the 92 playoffs when Mark Hansen was stopped a foot short of the goal line on a two-point conversion that would have won it.

Thanks for your opinions. Do you know who's going to play the point for the Sioux this year.

This seems to be a lot more common with juco's. Whenever NDSU signs one, I don't get really excited until they've played about half the season. I'm not trying to flame here, but there seems to be alot of attrition on the UND basketball team lately. Does Glas kind of turn off some players or what. To be fair, I think NDSU's football team suffered very high player departures during the Babich era.

RD17, I think that was Bisonguy's point. It appears that the NCAA places more weight on strength of schedule than head-to-head based on what was going on with Winona and CSP. I totally agree with you on the point that the Bison are the highest rated two loss team in the region because of our wins against good DII competition and not the DI-AA games.

Actually, one of the guys who took the nickel is now a vet, I don't know what the other guy does. Ag is not a dying profession. There is always money to be made in the agricultural and food sciences industry, unfortunately it is not usually farmers who make the money. We're still the North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Science, a name I'm very proud of. Back on topic, GO BISON.

Trying to get things back on topic a bit, I do think the Bison corners are probably the weak spot in the defense. However, it's my understanding that we rarely play man to man anymore, so deep coverage may be the responsibility of the safeties more than the corners. If we utilize zone blitzing schemes, we may be able to confuse Wilson/Bowenkamp. Of course, it's all speculation and we'll have to wait and see. I do think the Bison will be able to run on the Sioux (I capatalized it for you Jim), and I don't think the opposite is true, IMO.

Sic, Title IX takes alot more into account than scholarship equity. Equal practice opportunities, comparable facilities for men's and women's sports, etc. What I am saying is there are a lot of ways to "get around" Title IX. I also believe most universities are not in full compliance right now, but have shown the NCAA they are willing to take steps into assuring athletic opportunities for women. I don't think Title IX is as big a hurdle as some make it out to be.

Actually, SW Mo. St. is I-AA. You may have meant NW Mo. St. Anyway, I pretty much agree with the previous posts. NDSU has had decent home crowds when they've scheduled the likes of West Georgia, TAMUK, and most recently, UC-Davis. I don't know what the attendance was for the game vs. Crookston, but I think ticket sales would have to be better if top-notch competition is brought in.

UND92,96, I think you're partly right, UND would have a fine attendance if they brought in a quality DII opponent. But when is the last time, and I'm not trying to be mean here, that UND brought in a quality non-conference opponent. I really think they have to start re-thinking their scheduling, especially with a 7 team NCC.

Yeah I did miss the previous thread. Thanks for the link.

I'm surprised no one has posted anything on here about this yet, but did anybody see the piece on Sportscenter on Greg Lotysz. It was on the 5 p.m. SC on Friday. My wife lived on the same floor as his wife so even she was interested. I'm obviously no fan of UND, but that surely is a tragic story. I hope he takes the Jets for a lot of money.

Since Tony seems to be getting double-teamed here, I thought I would join the fray. I find it odd that Carr said a conference affiliation was needed before reclassification. Do you guys think that is possible? It's looking to me like no DI conference will offer membership to a DII school. You're probably going to throw UC-Davis invitation to the Big West in my face, but that looks like the exception rather than the rule. What do you guys think?

I think maybe NDSU may have been a little gunshy about recruiting skinny tall guys after Marc Forbush and Jon Breneman.

Sic, I guess I should have the report more thoroughly. Their statement would seem to contradict Title IX guidelines set fort by the NCAA, though. At any rate, I'm way off topic so I'll leave it up to the NDSU athletic department.

I think you make some good points except for the scholarships. I don't believe there is anything actually written on paper in Title IX legislation that mandates equal scholarships. There is alot of wording about having equal facilities, the same number of coaches for a particular men and women's sport, etc. I have also heard that men and women's scholarships must be equivocal (sp) to the student body ratio. If this is true, then in NDSU's case no additional women's scholarships would be necessary even after the addition of 27 additional football scholarships. This is based on complete funding of sports that NDSU already sponsors. I totalled them up and after the additional 27 football scholarships NDSU would have 114.87 scholarships for the men and 75 for the men. That's about a 1.5:1 ratio, which is pretty close to the male:female student body ratio (last data I've seen on that is 58% to 42%). But I guess my main point is that all anybody says (including myself) is pure conjecture and probably doesn't really mean a hill of beans.

I can't say this is true for sure, but I think I remember reading on the d2football site that Coors and Monfort ponied up some big bucks for UNC athletics. This may be driving their move to D1.

Erbes is definitely a question mark. But he could also turn out to be another Ross Pankratz. He was a guy who had the same knock on him. Too slow, no athletic ability. He was a star for some very good Northern State teams, one of which went to the elite eight. And Ross was pretty much completely ignored by the North Dakota schools. Not saying Erbes will be that good, but I think nonetheless he will be a solid contributor.

Sic, If you seriously think McFeely's a Bison fan, you are truly delusional. I do find some of his columns somewhat funny, though. And maybe you should take Tony's post for the humor it is.