Gothmog

Let me get this straight. An anonymous poster on an unidentified message board says that the AD of one school, out of eight needed, is "trying" to get a WAC-Big Sky realignment to happen, correct?

Attendance was down ~7,000 compared to last year. My understanding is that construction reduced capacity by about 4,000. Of course there's no way to know how many JMU and YSU fans would attended had seating not been limited by construction. Nevertheless, the stadium was not sold out yesterday, and there's no reason to assume that more people would have attended had the stadium not been under construction.

SDSU's offensive stats with a much tougher schedule: Wieneke WR - 1,316 yards 16 TDs Goedert TE - 1,293 yards 11 TDs Christion QB - 3,714 yards 30 TDs The Bison have already played, and beaten, some pretty fair offensive teams this year.

It seems like everyone brings their "C" game to the FargoDome, especially in December ... hmmm.

What, I am I being hypocritical?

It's easy to criticize when your team plays indoors, so you don't have to actually sit outside yourself. Nevertheless, If a were a bunny fan, I wouldn't have let the weather keep me away.

I wouldn't call 6,000+ fans "barely any."

So, you rather say that UND is ripping off the NCAA by under reporting ticket sales than admit there were some empty seats?

That implies that thousands of people that did not buy a ticket were in the building.

Huh? Retractable roofs generally are the worst of both worlds. I'd prefer either fixed or open to retractable.

Oh, I think we all know why you don't want to answer the hypothetical question. I won't give you that SDSU "should have" built an indoor stadium. Sure, playing indoors is great for attendance in December, but you can't beat watching college football outside on a sunny fall day. I am generally in favor of indoor stadiums in cold-weather cities, but there are pluses to playing outdoors.

Start filling your stadium and you won't have to worry about defending your fan support.

Honestly, what do you think the attendance at UND's playoff game this weekend would have been had it been played outdoors in bad weather? We do know that SDSU attracted 5,000+ more fans than UND during the regular season, that is an apples to apples comparison.

Again, I wasn't there. My experience is that such estimates are usually exaggerated.

I would be very surprised is that was true, but as I said, I wasn't there. They can't ever be verified, so these things become urban legends very quickly.

Estimates of attendance at road games are almost always wildly exaggerated. It's human nature to do so. I wasn't in NYC this weekend, but I'd say it's very likely that 9,000 or even 8,000 out of 11K is a wild overestimate. Not sure which game at the Metrodome you're referring to, but I was at all of them, and I'm absolutely sure that weren't nearly 30K Bison fans there at any of them.

9,000+? Do you have a link for that? Official attendance ws just over 11,000. Are you saying that there were only 2,000 BC and other fans there?

Well, there are reasons that all the other FCS schools in the Dakotas have indoor stadiums. Playoff attendance is at the top of that list.

There is some doubt about that attendance number, apparently the scanners weren't working properly. But, I guess they can't handle the cold down south.

Again, whether what you're saying is true or not this has nothing to do with a simple comparison of UND and SDSU's football attendance. SDSU's average attendance is much higher than UND's and that can't be explained by stadium size. The reasons for that are undoubtedly complex, and it's certainly possible that UND could reverse it in the future. But for now, there's no way to spin it other than SDSU's football program generates more fan interest than does UND's.

I wouldn't expect Richmond to intimidated by 10,000 fans. They beat Virginia in front or 49K+ this year. This team is accustomed to a bigger stage than Grand Forks can provide. .

Then expect criticism back.

No, they're not. But neither is UND. And, of course, we all know what team is the gold standard of FCS.

UND is not at WIU's level as an FCS football school quite yet. Win a few playoff games before criticizing teams that have.

The question is constructed so that depth is irrelevant. An "incredible" string of injuries could overwhelm any possible amount of depth. The point is that a team's record doesn't always say much about that team's likely success in the playoffs.