Bison06

You definitely have us there. You noticed that I left that little detail out huh? Somehow the head to head completely slipped my mind to type in my post.

NDSU football 1990-1999 Overall record of 88-27(76% winning percentage) 1 National championship 4 conference championships 6 Playoff appearances, which includes 3 national quarterfinal appearances not counting the national championship year Finished in the top 20 in the DII polls 6 of the 10 years UND football 1990-1999 Overall record of 73-27-1(72% winning percentage) No national championships 4 conference championships 6 Playoff appearances, including 2 national semifinal appearances So...yeah I feel pretty confident in saying that NDSU in the 1990's was pretty damn successful. Just not in comparison to the insane amount of dominance they showed in the 80's.

Even in D2 they were fine. I think that's what always gets lost in this conversation. NDSU in the 90's was very successful. Just not by their previous standards. The difference between winning and losing is at times minuscule. The scholarship change among other factors just shifted them to the other side of that very thin line between winning and losing.

NDSU turned out just fine I think.

Maybe UND would still be top 5, maybe not. When you change the rules of a game, some people adapt to those rule changes faster than others. UND has mastered college hockey under it's current format, if things were to change they would have to adapt to those changes. Maybe another team would take advantage of that faster than UND, maybe not. Hard to say.

Some ideas are more complex than your clever one line responses.

These funny little one liners may be cute, but they certainly aren't accurate.

I should further clarify. In no way am I saying this was the only reason. That would be foolish. UND's rise through the 90's and early 2000's had many factors, which included really, really good coaching and recruiting good solid kids. All I'm saying is that reducing scholarships, definitely hurt NDSU in the early 90's. And they without a doubt came back to the pack for a decade.

I should clarify one point. reducing scholarships in this way would only affect the teams at the top negatively in the short term. Eventually, having the resources be lesser but still equal would find a new equilibrium and the "better" programs would still be the "better" programs.

Sure it helped teams who don't fully fund, but it helped teams who were fully funding scholarships as well. Read through my example.

Just take a minute and use some logic and you'll understand. It's really quite simple. I'all use an FBS example. If this afternoon the NCAA announced that they were reducing the amount of scholarships from 85-76, 9 players that would have been on Alabamas roster are now on another team's roster. 9 players, scholarship players, good players that could turn into stars and/contributors are now on another teams roster. 9 players from clemsons roster, 9 players from Ohio state, Washington, Michigan, Oklahoma etc, 9 players from each of those rosters are now on a "lesser" team's roster. who gets worse? Who gets better? Maybe alabama had it down to 2 really great running backs coming out of high school. RB just happens to be a position that they don't have a huge need this year in recruiting so they have allocated only 1 scholarship to the position. So they take the one that they think is better, but really it's a toss up. The other guy takes a scholarship to auburn and turns into a star. The guy Alabama took was riddled with injuries and didn't see the field much, non contributor. If they had those 9 scholarships the auburn kid would have been on their roster. Quick and small example, but it's easy to see that the teams at the top are hurt by a scholarship reduction while the teams at the bottom are helped, as kids who would have likely accepted a scholarship to Alabama were now at auburn.

I suppose it can be debated how big of a role scholarship reductions played in NDSU coming back to the pack in the 90s, but you must at least acknowledge that going from 45 to 36(someone correct me on those if they're wrong) would hurt the teams at the top and help the teams at the bottom.

Correct, thanks for the clarification.

85 for FBS 63 for FCS

22 extra scholarship athletes is certainly an advantage. These debates have been going on for years, based on the outcomes of a lot of FCS vs FBS games, most years the top 5 in FCS would rank somewhere from 35-50 if they were ranked in the FBS polls. On a really good year(see NDSU 2013) I'd take the FCS champion against anyone outside of the top 20 on a neutral field.

Obviously no FCS team has ever played an entire MAC football schedule so both of us are speculating, but NDSU put a butt whooping on the MAC champ, in their house, in 2007 that makes me believe the top of schools in the MAC and the top FCS schools are pretty much the same in terms of competitiveness. http://www.espn.com/college-football/game?gameId=272652117

To be fair, on any given year, I think the FCS champion would likely win the MAC. This year might be an exception with the great run Western Michigan is having, but most years I think I'd pick the FCS champ over the MAC champ in a one game setting.

You've clearly never met Casey Bradley.

He gets mentioned all the time and has spoken to the team many times over the years. He is now and will forever be embraced by the Bison Family. He'll land on his feet and will likely have a coordinator job within hours of the season ending this year. Great coach and an even better human being.

I think it's more of a football rule in general.

He was. Clearly he is an all time great QB for an FCS team, but it deeper than that. I've said this since 2013, but I think polisek is outmatched as a coordinator. After Vigen left I starting seeing his odd play calling. Getting tunnel vision at times, his lack of ability to put his playmakers in positions to thrive. But with Carson being at QB I think he masked some of the challenges polisek had. Tonight, our guys looked lost in the 2 minute drill, we would have great success with certain packages and then comepletely abandon them on the next series. Clearly, offensive coordinator is a tough job, but I think his play calling leaves a lot to be desired and that has been the biggest change that I've seen these last few years.

Gotcha, makes more sense now.

Ummm...ok

Absolutely agree with you though. Need to get a few more dynamic playmakers on the offensive side of the ball. When the offense needed big plays they really didn't have their go to guys like in years past. Hardly an unsuccessful season for the boys and the run had to stop at some point. It's good for FCS football to have other teams emerge. JMU had some serious talent on the field tonight. Aggressive athletic defense and with a middle linebacker with a name like gage steele, NDSU's fate was sealed the day that kid was born. That's a badass name for a middle linebacker

That offside call on ambrosius was the dagger looking back. What a change in fortune that penalty turned out to be. That's why football is great, have to be disciplined at all times.