Bison06

What exactly am I not getting? That there is a difference between playoffs and regular season?...smh There is a common theme among about three posters on this board that I find pretty funny. You continue to subtly state that NDSU’s dominant run would’ve been different if they had to play on the road for those playoff games. The complete idiocy of your logic revolves around the fact that it is 100% due to NDSU’s dominance in the regular season(you say doesn’t mean anything) that they’ve earned every single Home playoff game in the last 7 years. As I said, you want NDSU to travel in December? You know what to do.

Considering the outcomes of those regular season games dictate where playoff games get played, I think it’s fair to say they actually do mean $&@3$@7. You all act like NDSU is simply gifted home playoff games. You want them to play on the road in the playoffs? The rest of the FCS knows exactly how to make that happen. Easier said than done, I’m afraid.

I believe all three of their losses have been road games, so there may be something to that. But, getting physically manhandled on the line and having your star run for his life will take the “mojo” out of nearly everyone.

I realize Streveler is everything to them, but banged up? What does that mean? He’s clearly healthy enough to play...I mean is anybody 100% at this time in the year? We have played the last 3 games without our best running back. That’s sort of part of the game come November and December. USD has looked great against inferior opponents and has struggled mightily against even above average teams. I think the team we are seeing now is exactly who they’ve been all along. They are just playing better teams the past 4 weeks.

I haven’t followed their injury situation super close. What makes you say they aren’t the same team?

The 2015 Bison would have won that championship in January 2016 over Jacksonville state whether Wentz played that day or not. Stick has played poorly, no arguments from me. He also has the ability to play incredibly well at times. We’ll see how it all plays out.

Smh, I’m embarrassed for you.

Is this the picture you were looking for? I'll expect a picture of the Nickel to follow, which will be justified.

What year did the great west teams join the Big Sky? Seems they must have known it was coming since they had so much play back and forth between the two leagues in 2009 and 2010. NAU v. EWU also fits the criteria Also, I believe App state was transitioning by then, so technically is an FBS away game for Montana. Edit: 2012 they were still FCS, I’m not sure what they were in 2013 since they were awful it’s hard to tell if they were eligible for playoffs that year or if they had already increased scholarships.

I’m talking easier in the sense of the relationship that AD’s already have with conference mates. I’ll fully admit I have no knowledge of how these games get scheduled, but it has to be an easier conversation to start when you are calling someone that you’ve known for years personally and are on conference calls and go to conference meetings with every year.

As was said above, apparently FBS games don’t count the same as FCS OOC games.

I hate to split hairs, because I realize technically they are OOC games. But isn’t it fair to put some sort of qualifier on those Big Sky Non-conference/conference mate games? I mean, those games have to be incredibly easy to line up right?

NDSU has had home and homes with Montana, EWU, Weber State and has Delaware upcoming. When Montana and EWU have 4-5 Home and homes signed “that’s a lot”, but when NDSU does it they are not playing tough enough FCS OOC games? You must see the double standard you’ve laid out here, don’t you?

I’ve had a different experience and so have many people I know.

I’ve met him in person more than a few times, his persona online is in many ways more palatable than the real life version if you can believe that.

They definitely had some close ones during their playoff runs where any advantage the other team might have taken by being in their home stadium may have tipped the scales the other way, but as you’ve conceded, playoff home games were earned so you can’t really fault NDSU for that. Either way, if you look around the FCS landscape you don’t see a lot of OOC games bein played between “elite” schools in general. It’s not just NDSU. Take a look at JMU and SHSU and JSU or even Montana and EWU. They aren’t exactly lining up killers in their OOC schedule. Everybody schedules pretty similarly knowing their conference schedule is full of juggernauts and it’ll all work itself out in the end since FCS has a true playoff.

I don’t necessarily disagree with any of the above, but it’s not an opinion that NDSU has a better road record in the past 6 years than they do at home. They have both an unbelievable home-field advantage AND somehow have a better record away from that home field. I know it’s not a popular take around here, but NDSU has been virtually unbeatable everywhere, they just happen to lose slightly more at home than they do on the road. Since 2011, NDSU has lost 7 football games. 5 have been in the FargoDome, 1 was at Montana and 1 was at UNI.

As far as message board conversations go, this is an interesting one, but I have a question. Are people questioning NDSU's scheduling methods for the sake of calling out inconsistencies in the fan-base's language of "no one will play us" or are people somehow suggesting that NDSU's strength of schedule hasn't been up to par. If it's the first, then I don't know the details that go one behind the scenes of who we've tried to schedule or who we haven't. But if it's the second one then I would suggest everyone take a huge step back and look at NDSU's schedule or the past 7 years and take an objective view of the overall difficulty of their schedule. There wasn't one year that NDSU "avoided" someone on the way to their championship so I hope that isn't what is being suggested by questioning NDSU's scheduling methods.

Coming into the year NDSU fans knew the OOC was a little bit of a stinker, two legitimate cupcake games. What couldn’t be anticipated was that they would be followed up with the worst two teams in the conference the next two weeks. If Indiana state and Missouri state were sprinkled in later weeks the schedule rounds out quite nicely this year. Overall the degree of difficulty this year is insane. It’s just backloaded.

Damn, read it too fast, thought I had you there

First 5? Careful, one of those teams is gonna be the champion of your conference.

My answer would be exactly the same. Sure you’d get some uneducated clowns saying you beat up on cupcakes(see above conversation for exhibit A) but anyone who knows anything about football at this level would know that you don’t demolish EWU at home if you aren’t the real deal.

If UND had blown out EWU on the road the way NDSU did, you wouldn’t hear a word from educated FCS fans.

I think Youngstown is overrated this year, we’ll see this weekend, but I think their defense is suspect after losing two draft picks on the DL. I think they’ll miss the playoffs. We’ll see on the other two.

You keep imposing unrealistic expectations on NDSU. Two points: 1. Scheduling isn’t easy and you can’t just pick the teams you want. The other team has to want to schedule the games as well. 2. NDSU plays in the most difficult conference in FCS, my gosh look at the murderer’s row they have the next 5 weeks. They have to be realistic and pragmatic about scheduling when the ultimate goal is a national championship. Some people wouldn’t be convinced NDSU is playing good teams unless they played JMU followed by SHSU followed by Jacksonville State in their OOC schedule, that’s just not realistic. UND has followed a similar scheduling philosophy as of late, nothing wrong with laying out a schedule that is designed to help a team be ready to peak when it really matters, playoffs.