Hammersmith

I believe the original plan was 18 in 2008, 20 in 2010, 22 in 2012, and 24 in 2014. The problem was they waited too long and too many games had been scheduled for the 2008 season to eliminate the bye week by then. This way, they get back on track and everyone has time to work out their schedules. Like was said, the 9th and 10th autobids will go to the NEC and the Big West, but I wouldn't count on a Great West autobid until the 12th autobid is created. In fact, even with a 6th team, 2014 will be the first year the GWFC will be eligible for one. I'd guess the 11th autobid will go to the Pioneer unless the Ivy's pull the stick out their asses.

My gut says no, but I don't have solid facts to back it up. The NCAA definition of a SWA is: "The highest-ranking female administrator involved with the conduct of a member institution

I know it's fashionable to bash the UP project, but I just can't bring myself to muster much anger and distrust over it. Mainly, it's because I can see what happened, and I understand the decisions that got them to this point. When this project was conceived, the economy was still reasonably good, and, more importantly, the lending industry still appeared healthy. On top of that, the original timetable for the project had a completion date of late 2009 for the whole thing. Then, two unrelated events occurred. First, the USHL pressured Brandt to push up the timetable so that the expansion team could begin play in 2008. This necessitated the splitting of the project into two parts: the main arena and the four practice sheets. The main arena needed to be complete by late 2008 to satisfy the USHL, and the practice sheets needed to be completed by the original due date of late 2009 to satisfy the park board and the school districts. Alone, that acceleration of the timetable shouldn't of mucked anything up; except that the lending industry imploded shortly after. Prior to the meltdown, a project such as this, led by a established businessman like Brandt, would've been put together on a napkin in a golf course bar and sealed by a handshake on the 18th hole. Post-meltdown, lenders belatedly began to insist on every i dotted and every t crossed, even with known money makers. This "new" layer of bureaucracy tacked time onto the financing phase of the project that was no longer available. I think the UP project could've handled either one of these problems with nary a peep in the press, but the combination of the two caused Brandt and Co. to have to scramble to lock in the financing in a very public way. Considering the USHL team will probably make-or-break the project, I can't really blame Brandt for agreeing to accelerate the timetable. And the lending meltdown was completely out of his control. So, the financing is a little more ragtag than any of us would've hoped for, it's still getting done, and the whole project should match the original goals in spirit, if not excatly in fact. I can live with that. edit: this was supposed to come right after Sic's post, but roper beat me to some of the same points while I was typing this up

I would think it should be possible. NDSU just held a softball tournament in the Fargodome about a week ago, and I think it has less sideline space than the Alerus. The biggest problem with holding a game in a football stadium seems to be the lack of dirt running paths. The turf can sometimes cause injuries when players try to slide or pivot. When discussing the tourney on Bisonville, a poster remembered being in the FD a few years back when a visiting player snapped her leg trying to make a play. He said the snap and her scream echoed into the silence. Now, I doubt something that bad would happen every year, but it might be a reason why UND has never used the Alerus in this way.

Nope, it's not old news; the preliminary article just hit the Forum a couple hours ago. A more detailed article like the one you posted will be in the paper tomorrow morning. It looks like Fargo beat out St. Cloud and Providence for the tourney. It won't be nearly as big as the tourney GF hosted a few years back, but it should take full advantage of the finished facility. On the local upside, getting this tourney will force the arena owners to stick to their plan of finishing the four practice sheets on schedule.

That, or there was zero chance of UC Davis scheduling USD and he didn't want the two new schools treated differently.

I had no idea either, so I did a little digging on the board and it seems he got one of his degrees from NDSU. That seems to explain the comments.

On the Dan Hammer show Wednesday, just after the NDSU press conference, Bohl said they were talking with 3 or 4 schools, but that a deal was ready to be inked with one of them shortly(within a week?). He also said that a 12th game was a possibility, but unlikely at this point(I think he said most of the Gateway schools were going with 11).

Sorry gabe, you're a year off. The players you listed were part of NDSU's 2003 recruiting class, which would correspond to UND's 2007 class(last year's). The corresponding class to this year's UND class of 2008 would be NDSU's class of 2004(Bohl's first class). That class included Jangula, Belquist, Wurzbacherh, Maresh, Schommer, Lardinois, Heckendorf, and a little guy named Tyler Roehl. 2003 did rock for us, didn't it though?

Personally, I think the easy schedule Amy set up that year was a mistake. I would look to SDSU for a better Year 1 schedule. 2004-05 Concordia-St. Paul (Minn.) Cal State Bakersfield (tourney) at Cal State Stanislaus (tourney) Rutgers (N.J.) (tourney) Kentucky (tourney) Oregon State (tourney) at Northern Illinois at Texas State at Southern California Wisconsin-Eau Claire Loras (Iowa) Ferris State (Mich.) at Purdue (Ind.) at Oklahoma State at Middle Tennessee State at Alabama at Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Wisconsin-Green Bay North Dakota State Briar Cliff (Iowa) at IPFW at Northern State Si Tanka-Huron Sioux Falls Doane (Neb.) Upper Iowa at North Dakota State Grand Canyon (Ariz.) SDSU went 21-7 with this schedule.

Only bringing it up because McFeeley did all the work about a week ago. Grading Bohl's recruiting classes

With about 12 hours to go, this is the list I was able to put together from this thread. Did I miss anything? North Dakota -Ian McGurran, 6-5, 260, OL, Fargo North -Seth Nichols, 6-4, 195, QB, Dakota Prairie -Brian Sorensen, 6-3, 205, OLB, Hazen -Seth Wisthoff, 6-4, 255, TE, Glenburn Minnesota -Devin Benjamin, 6-2, 290, DL, De La Salle -Marcus Hendrickson, 6-2, 190, QB, Perham -Ethan Magstadt, 6-1, 210, RB, Maple Grove Wisconsin -Jon Heimler, 6-3, 189, WR, Menomonie -Erik Mersereau, 6-0, 170, S, Port Washington -Mitch Sutton, 6-0, 200, RB, Stevens Point Alaska -Ian Rosario, 6-6, 310, OL, Chugiak Nebraska -Ross Brennemann, DE, Millard West Texas -Kenny Watkins, 5-10, 180, CB, Plano Transfers -Jamie Sigl, 6-1, 190, FS, UMD Decommits -Kyle Cavil, 6-4, 240, DL, Ashwaubenon, WI - verballed to SIU -Dan Edem, 6-2, 220, TE, Eastview, MN - verballed to NIU -Mitch Haugeberg, 6-3, 293, OL, Minot, ND - verballed to Minot St -Jason Obarski, 6-0, 190, P, Apple Valley, MN - verballed to NDSU -Chris Tracy, 6-2, 205, OLB, West Lyon, IA - verballed to SDSU

I believe there is a hack out there that allows the iPhone to work on T-Mobile's network, but, since T-M doesn't have towers in ND either, we're still out of luck up here. I've heard something about Google developing a phone and operating system that will work on almost any network and be as nice as the iPhone, but I guess it's still a couple years away.

As I was looking back on flagship/land-grant universities, I learned about sea, space and sun grant colleges. No big suprise, none of the Dakota schools are sea-grant colleges(30 schools; started in 1966), but UND is a space-grant college(52 consortia; started in 1988), and SDSU is one of five sun grant colleges(started in 2003) in addition to its land-grant status. Actually, SDSU is the lead program of the five. For more information: Land-grant university Sea grant colleges Space grant colleges Sun grant colleges Back on topic, sort of... While I don't view a FBS move by NDSU as realistic in the near to short term, NDSU has to be about 10x more likely than UND to make the move within the same timeframe. It always boils down to the same thing: where's the conference? You've got two realistic choices in FBS conferences: MAC and WAC. The MAC has so-so geography, but it doesn't have much competitive appeal, and UND wouldn't really fit in(the smallest MAC school has over 20,000 in enrollment). The WAC would be a geographic nightmare, though UND would be only the third smallest. I like to talk about a FBS MVC, but as unlikely as they are to take NDSU anytime soon, UND's chances are probably in the negative, so long as UND basketball is considered a tertiary sport behind hockey and football. Finally, a few posters seem to forget that that athletic facilities master plan has a 30-50 year timeframe. Some of the projects listed in it may come soon, but others are decades away, if they even happen at all. Guess where that stadium comes in at. (BTW, the rendering for the outdoor stadium in the first draft of the plan was actually copied from the new Gopher stadium. Does anyone recognize where the architects grabbed the retractable roof stadium design from?) Just an opinion.

No, flagship is not an official term. What happened to the different states went something like this... When territories acheived statehood, they were given money to start a state university. Alongside this, the Morrill Act of 1862 gave every state a piece of federal land to start an agricultural/engineering/military college. Some states, like WI, MN, WY & NE, choose to lump the two grants together to form one large university. States like ND, SD, MT, KS & CO, chose to create two seperate institutions. Today, states like the first group tend to call the resulting university their flagship. The second type of states will often, but not always, give the flagship title to both major universities. Normally, the choice is made depending on how each university has fared over the last hundred years or so(some grow and prosper, others fail and become irrelevant). The flagship title can even move to a new school if circumstances warrant(ex. San Jose State was the first public university in CA, but most would regard UCLA and UC Berkeley as CA's flagship schools). Another description and a listing* of states' flagship universities can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagship_university *The listing is based off of a USA Today article listing tuition costs at 75 public flagship schools. The 75 number is arbitrary and the list should not viewed as official or completely accurate(I think SDSU should be on it).

Bisonsports has been running for over a year and has less than 10,000 total posts. Bisonville and Siouxsports get that in about a month. As for the supposed censorship at Bisonville, I don't have any problem with it. In fact, Jim keeps a tighter rein on this place than Tony does on Bisonville. In both cases, it's their right as the people who pay the bills and run the sites. I respect both of them because they're upfront with their decisions and the reasoning behind them. On the flipside, I am uncomfortable on AnyGivenSaturday because the admin and mods have identities seperate from their normal usernames and they work very hard at keeping everything secret. As for the current situatition at Bisonville, there is still plenty of UND talk, but it's real discussion now, not grade school pissing matches. (The smack section is a different animal, of course. If you stop in there, be sure to take your sense of humor. Most of the posts are meant good naturedly; only a few are truely mean-spirited.) As for Bisonsports, it's kind of a nice alternative. There's more "real sports" info and discussion at Bisonville, but Bisonsports has some side topics that are either not present or banned at Bisonville(like politics). I don't post there all that often, and I sometimes forget to check it for weeks at a time, but it's a good place to visit occasionally.

There used to be a seperate subforum on BV just for UND talk and smack, but Tony got rid of it almost two years ago. In his own words, it was a "very bad experiment." At the time, UND was in the news every couple of weeks for fairly big stuff; the Sioux lawsuit, the final decision to go DI, and a few other things. Each time a story came out, UND talk flared up. Tony thought that by creating a seperate forum, he could contain the mess. It didn't work. After a while, he gave up and closed the subforum. He also tried shutting down UND talk immediately with warnings and suspensions. Some posters reacted very negatively to that and created their own forum: bisonsports.net. In the end, the talk died away as the stories became old news and UND locked into its DI course. There's still some UND talk on the board, but it's not much more than NDSU talk on this one.

Just an FYI, but Minn games at Newman have also brought in 1,019 in 2006 and 922 in 2005. I'm not sure why only 503 showed up for the 2007 game since it was a pretty nice day(high 60's/no rain), but it's possible that a Tuesday night game coupled with a 14-29 record to that point caused people to not care about it. It's also possible that the 4-10 loss earlier in the season may have played a part. Now, that's not saying that 500+ crowds are common at Newman. To the contrary, you can count the number of those games on two hands, and games with UND are responsible for almost half of them(Minn games account for the other half). In fact, average attendance for NDSU at Newman is pretty sad; 255 for 2007, 490 for 2006(only 6 home dates), 350 in 2005, and 349 in 2004. In short, it doesn't matter how nice of a facility you may have, people will only show if the product is good. At NDSU, baseball is just about last on the priority list(men's golf may be lower), so it's a very difficult situation for the coaches. Now that our budget has reached the $11M+ mark, I hope additional resources can be devoted to the baseball program. As for you guys, I'd hate to see you drop a program, but baseball would have to top the list of options. You have more than enough sports to satisfy the DI minimum(need 14, have 20) and no local conferences require baseball. Also, you potentially are in such good Title IX complience, you could even drop a women's sport if you also dropped baseball(even W Hockey if you really wanted to). Talk about helping your bottom line.

Also, the last membership change for the WCC was in 1980. Ironically, that change was Seattle U leaving for DII. Only the Pac-10(1978) and the Ivy League(1954) have had the current group of members for a longer time.

Forget what I posted. I'm an idiot. I knew that the Alerus had a curved roof, but for some reason I thought it was curved in the other direction(sideline to sideline, not endzone to endzone). I was so focused on getting the north/south hotel thing right, that I didn't take a close look at the interior until sic's post. Whoops.

Thanks. I was hoping that was the case, but I didn't want to go off on a long post only to find everything in it was wrong because I got the hotel on the wrong side. If I were you guys, I'd put an on-campus stadium on the way, way, way back burner and think about an Alerus expansion instead. You should be able to increase seating in the Al to about 16k for a small fraction of the cost of a new facility and only have the Al out of commission for about a month. First, put on about a 60-80 yard extention to the south endzone. This could be done without the removal of the south wall, so no interuption of activities would occur. The extention would include either endzone seating like the Fargodome or a horseshoe configuration with seating in the corners. Once the extention was complete(and the FB season was over), the south wall could be removed and all the construction equipment moved to the north endzone. This would be the one month shutdown. Once everything has been moved, a couple of thick plastic curtains could be hung from the rafters to allow events to proceed while the north endzone was being worked on. The north end of the Alerus would then be worked into a mirror of the south end, either giving full-bowl or 4-sided seating to the Alerus. Money could even be saved by relocating the northernmost stands to the south end, complete with seats intact. By my rough calculations, a simple four sided configuration like the Fargodome would seat a little beyond 16k. Add seating in the corners and you might hit 18k. That would do you for 10-15 years at least, for 10-20% of the cost of a retractable roof or enclosed stadium.

Quick question: Is the Canad Inn on the south side of the Alerus or the north side? I can't tell from the pictures I've found, and I didn't pay close enough attention the last time I drove past it(several months ago).

They aren't that far apart and, honestly, I'm not sure which is better. NDSU has much better facilities at the moment, but SIU will nearly close the gap by the end of the decade. NDSU gets the nod in tradition and fan/community support since football is king here, but it's easier to recruit to SIU(the regular Big Dance appearances can't hurt) and the pay is much better. I'd say both jobs are among the 10 best in FCS, and both are trying for the top 5(pay/playoffs for NDSU and facilities for SIU). As for UND, it'd be a stretch for me to put the job in the top-25 for FCS at the moment; maybe top-35 would be better. Facilities are decent, but not spectacular. Pay is above average, but not by much. Hockey is king. Throw in the playoff ineligibility, nickname question, and power vacuum in administration, and you just can't put UND among the elite jobs for now. Maybe in five years things will change dramatically, but not for today.

Kill's last contract before leaving for NIU was for $175k/year plus incentives. I'd have to think the $200k for Lennon includes those incentives, but it's possible it doesn't. Either way, Lennon will sit atop the Gateway salary tree with Farley from UNI, at least for now. It will also put him in the top-five of all FCS coaches.

And former SIU coach Jerry Kill had a base salary of $175,000 in a working-class region. I expect northeast ND and southern Illinois aren't all that different when it comes to cost of living. I also expect Kill's replacement to get a total package in the $175,000-$200,000 range. That would be a pretty good bump from his[DL's] current salary, correct?