jdub27

You're right, Sagarin is currently assigning roughly 2.07/2.20 points for home field advantage this year. Since YSU is USD's second best win, you need to compare them correctly: Winning @WIU is better than winning @YSU (both team's best win) and beating YSU at home is better than winning @EWU (both team's second best win). Advantage USD. When are you going to acknowledge the part where the rankings that only take into account this season show USD as better than NDSU?

I see you not surprisingly completely ignored my 2nd point, but you made up for it by making things up with your last sentence... Best two wins on NDSU's schedule: YSU - 85 (64.03)EWU - 117 (57.71) Best two wins on USD's schedule: WIU - 48 (64.71)YSU - 85 (64.03) USD's third and fourth wins are also better than NDSU's third. But I digress.

Both teams are 6-0. One has played a harder schedule. Seems pretty simple to decide who, to this point in time, has a better resume. Also, if you use only results from this year, USD is rated #39 (76.65) and NDSU is #46 at (74.83). The main rankings are still showing bias from outside this season. What's going to be your excuse for that?

Both teams are 6-0. Sagarin currently has NDSU rated as a better team. Sagarin currently has USD with a significantly harder schedule to date (10+ points/game). Resume is based on wins vs. the schedule you've play. Just because NDSU is rated better does not mean they currently have a better resume, the Sagarin algorithm is more complex than that. While there is definitely some correlation between the two, it is not mutually exclusive despite what you may think.

What in the hell does that have to do with who currently has a better resume? More like you completely missed the point.

Opponent ranks per Sagarin: USD WIU - 48 (64.71) YSU - 85 (64.03) Bowling Green - 135 (53.25) UND - 163 (42.97) ISU - 228 (37.67) Drake - 234 (26.65) NDSU YSU - 85 (64.03) EWU - 117 (57.71) MSU - 204 (39.36) ISU - 228 (37.67) Robert Morris - 230 (27.54) MSVU - 238 (8.35) Sagarin has EWU as a whopping 4 points better than the Bowling Green team you claim ins't a good win. Why does it always have to be "Me! Me! Me!" with NDSU fans?

Sagarin SOS rankings: NDSU - 219 USD - 159 Difference in opponent quality is over 10 points/game.

I mean, it doesn't sound all that different than Cam Hunt, a RFr who has been playing pretty damn well at middle linebacker. Slated to be a back-up and he has two picks in his first two games since healing up enough to get on the field, even though he's still not 100%. There's a huge difference between plugging and playing a handful of guys, which still gives the other starters the ability to cover up some of the deficiencies. But when you have over half of your starting roster in street clothes and 3rd stringers who were supposed to be getting a handful of snaps a game vs. playing every single down, you lose the ability to cover up some of the drop off that every single roster would have.

Unfortunately that isn't going to make it better. Hard to believe but it is what it is...

Unless the running backs can run through 9 guys, I'll take the under. I'd be happy to be wrong but I don't see a whole lot of success passing the ball today.....

Let's hope a few guys that weren't previously injured can go this week, some dings from last week.

Looks like quite a few $15/$25 tickets left this weekend for those families who couldn't afford tickets (or thought the price was too high) for the Gopher series. Could get the whole family in for less than the price of a Minnesota ticket.

I hadn't realized Bryce Blair had switched numbers and lined up at fullback last game part time. Interesting move, guess it's one way to get him on the field until he can put on a little more weight to handle the wear of playing on the line.

Very possible and you would assume that the schools look at each other as peers rather than down their nose like they aren't worthy of a home/home. I guess the good news is the MVFC will go from having 1 extra team to 2, so maybe that will help out. But again, it still only accounts for 1 game in that whole list.

They are trying to get the best deal for themselves, as is the other team who needs to make it worth their while to travel up to Fargo, which they typically cover their own expenses for. The price for one-off games continues to go up as everyone wants home games and the teams that are willing to play money games within the FCS appear to have more bargaining power now than they previously did. When FBS teams don't want to play you and you are complaining FCS teams want too much money to come to your house, the only real alternative is to schedule home/homes or open up the pocketbook even further. But again, ignoring the reasoning that "no one will play us" is my bigger issue.

I mean, I guess travel is easier for the teams because they are in closer proximity but home/home still requires travel to an FCS school. Maybe it's easier, I guess I'm not sure but I do think the only one on that list that would actually fit under that category would be the MSU/EWU series. The rest were from when teams were in the Great West.

I didn't include all of EWU or Montana's, particularly since EWU's schedule is hard to decipher, but below is the best I was able to put together. I don't think there is a double standard noce you look at the whole list and again, the bigger point is their fans and athletic department representatives aren't publicly complaining "no one will play us". We will see if NDSU will schedule out some home/homes like Montana and EWU have done. Home/homes since 2010 along with future games signed. I also listed total OOC FCS road games played and scheduled since 2010: NDSU Weber State (2014/15) Montana (2014/15) EWU (2016/17) Delaware (2018/19) OOC FCS away games played and scheduled: 3 / 1 Montana North Dakota (2010/13) Cal-Poly (2010/11) Appalachian State (2012/13) South Dakota (2012/13) Liberty (2012/2015) NDSU (2014/15) UNI (2016/18) Liberty (2018/19) WIU (2018/21) South Dakota (2019/22) Missouri State (2020/21) North Dakota (2024/25) OOC FCS away games played and scheduled: 6 / 4 Eastern Washington Southern Utah (2009/10) Cal Poly (2011/12) Sam Houston (2013/14) Montana State (2014/15) UNI (2015/16) NDSU (2016/17) Western Illinois (2020/21) NAU (2018/20) OOC FCS away games played and scheduled: 8 / 2 EWU traveled to USD (2011) and Fordham (2017) with no return trips.

So are you guys saying NDSU fans are full of it and their home field advantage doesn't mean anything? I'm not saying they haven't deserved it, I'm simply asking if all the chest pounding about the great home field advantage means something or the fans are clueless. Simple question, either it has helped them or it hasn't. I agree that it may have, but as we pointed out, NDSU's away record during the playoffs is much worse than their home record. I would argue that SHSU, EWU and UM actually all are playing quite a few stronger non-conference games. UM done home and homes with NDSU, UNI and has USD, Missouri State, WIU and UND(once they leave the Big Sky) already signed. EWU has played NDSU, UNI, SHSU and actually traveled for a money game to Fordham and also have WIU on the future schedule. That's a lot of home and home's signed by the two Big Sky teams you mentioned. . I don't know much about SHSU or JSU (and neither show future schedules) but SHSU has been more than willing to play home and homes with Richmond, EWU in the last few years and UND coming up. NDSU has done home/homes with EWU, UM, Weber and an upcoming one with Delaware with no other ones currently on the horizon. Like I said, teams can schedule however you want, it's the incessant whining about "everyone is scared to play us" rather than "it's hard to find teams willing to play under our demands" that gets old when there is alot more to the story. I should also point out that none of those other schools have fans or athletic department representatives complaining about scheduling issues, NDSU does.

I buy all of that however I think they would have slipped up one or two more times in the playoffs if they would have had to travel during their streak. It is also fair to point out that it isn't an opinion that that since joining the FCS, NDSU's home playoff winning percentage (.947%, 18-1!!) is better than their winning percentage as a true road team (.500%, 1-1). That of course excludes neutral site games.

I think it's more of a product of the complaining that "no one will play us" without the understanding or acknowledgement that NDSU's scheduling philosophy is a part of the problem, especially when you want to make the claim on a UND board. The math just doesn't work out for NDSU to do what it wants and consistently play home/homes, which are much easier to book than money games or FBS games, both of which I agree NDSU is having trouble getting for different reasons (don't want to overpay and FBS teams aren't willing to pay enough for it to be worth NDSU's while or don't want to deal with NDSU in general). Obviously the SOS of is going to vary from year to year; last year was a tough one, though slightly inadveratadly as Charleston Southern replaced a cupcake game late in the scheduling process. But if you can't offer that to other schools and you don't want to pay significant dollars to bring teams in, then the byproduct of that is going to be an easier strength of schedule. It will be interesting to see what they ended up paying Davis and Poly for one-off games. This year, I'm not sure how the conference schedule lined up for NDSU the way it did this year, but it gave them 4 out of their first 5 games as incredibly easy, as evidenced by the 20th easiest schedule out of 254 Division 1 schools to date. No doubt it gets significantly harder from here on out. I don't think NDSU dodged anyone but they have definitely had the advantage of playing every game in the Fargodome, which was earned through the regular season. The scheduling philosophy is set up to help with that. And for the record, I don't buy the "they have a better record on the road" argument. Lots of NDSU fans can't stop bragging about how hard the crowd makes it to play in the Fargodome, you can't have it both ways.

The terms of a home and home are "you play at my place and I'll play at yours", it really is that simple and there are not really any other terms to dictate. I feel pretty confident your sister's kids could probably handle it. The problem is because of NDSU's preferred scheduling philosophy, they don't want to/are unable to do they part where they play at someone else's place. 1. I don't care, but NDSU fans are being dishonest when they say "no one will play us" when it's more accurate that "no one will place us under the self-imposed conditions we want to base our schedule on". Be honest about it, the want/need of 6 home games and an FBS game has been a huge hurdle and prevented more home/home being scheduled and is a big part of the reason "no one will play us". 2. Not sure what the relevance of that is other than they did go to EWU this year, fulfilling the back-end of the home/home, which is why they either weren't going to have an FBS game or 6 home games. NDSU obviously had given up trying to get an FBS game for this season when they signed the EWU contract in 2014 because the 6 home games take precedent. 3. Again, I don't care what they do but again, complaining that "no one will play us" is clearly disingenuous. Why does "manufactured" discussion on a non-rivals message board bother you so much? An NDSU fan asked for a team, he gave one. NDSU was the one who refused to sign a home/home. Why the need to get so worked up over that?

I'll type it up and get it over to him, I can tell how busy he is doing his show over on the Bison Propaganda Network to call schools up and say "Hey, how would you like to host NDSU and have us bring our 5,000 10,000 25,000+ traveling fan base to your stadium? All you need to do is play a game up in Fargo." Matt Larsen has said they need 6 home games every year and would like an FBS every year (though that has obviously not worked out). If he were to get what he wants, then there is absolutely zero need for extrapolating to realize you can't have your 2 OOC home games (plus 4 conference home games to reach 6 total) and an FBS game and still have room to honor away games for home/home contracts, it's just simple math. The caveat would be if they did it in on of the few 12 game seasons upcoming like they are doing with Delaware in 2018/2019, though there is no FBS game, instead they are playing Butler at Target Field. So again, I believe that they are struggling to get an FBS opponent they want or makes it worth while and that teams are asking for a good chunk of change to come up to the Fargodome, however I'm not buying they are having a hard time with home/home games, meaning they could find games, they just aren't under the terms they want.

This bold is the key. It isn't that it's hard to get games, it's that it is hard for them to get the games they want at the price/terms they want and that fit into their scheduling philosophy. That makes a big difference when people are publicly crying about that "no one will play us" when in actuality it is "no one will play us under the terms we want". Nothing wrong with it, but it is definitely misleading. I don't think we need news releases, but they sure have not problem letting out scheduling information that makes them look like the victim, however I don't see them leaking out anything that would paint them in any other light. Their prerogative, they can do as they please. There are tons of FCS schools who would do a home/home with NDSU, however NDSU is reluctant to do that because of how traveling to an FCS school impacts their flexibility. Matt Larsen has publicly admitted as much multiple times, so I'm not sure why you are getting all worked up over it? I'm not believing what I want, I'm going off exactly what Matt Larsen and others have said about scheduling. It doesn't take a rocket science to do the math. As for the talking out of both sides of your mouth thing, you first comment was about how previous commentary was spot on about how "extremely difficult" it was to schedule games and your second comment was about how you don't have the information to elaborate on scheduling when in fact you already did exactly that and then did so again in the above comment. You are deflecting when it's convenient.

So do you know how difficult it is or not? You're talking out of both sides here, you definitively proclaim how difficult it is and then deflect when I call BS on the home/home thing. I've yet to hear of a single team turning down a game in Fargo if NDSU returns the favor (Montana State doesn't count, they paid the agreed upon buyout to fulfill that contract).

What team is going to turn down a chance to bring NDSU in for the price of whatever it costs to send their team to Fargo?