jdub27

Are you playing fantasy football? The scoreboard is what matters. And I'm not sure what Zenner did against NDSU has to do with it?

Is that kind of similar to the fact that SDSU was going to throttle UND? Aren't you an attorney? I think you'd have a better understanding of what a fact is.

Expectations raised. Congrats to Jaron.

Respect needs to be earned. Sounds like the players and coaching staff are well aware of it. Time to get to work and get back to North Dakota football.

Clearly UND athletics has managed to keep your attention over that time span with the amount of time you spend here.

Not sure what you are proposing to do force teams to come here? Did you come up for any of those games during transition when the schedule was supposedly better and have now quit coming? Like I said, the change in attendance isn't worth shelling out huge dollars for a guarantee game. Might have to start throwing in some sort of incentive to get home and homes but from a cost perspective, offering a ton doesn't make sense. I'd be perfectly fine with a rotation of USD/NDSU/SDSU/Omaha with 2 home and 2 away every year. Sprinkle other DI OOC when possible.

Football is a completely different beast that basketball, not comparable. 8-10,000 tickets at $20-30 generates a lot more revenue than less than 2,000 at $10 a ticket. Maybe you aren't aware since I'm not sure how many games you attend, but unless there is a special promotion like they did last year (XDSU's/UM/MSU), attendance doesn't actually vary that much regardless of opponent. Maybe a couple hundred and that is probably a stretch. There might be slight bump, but not enough to move the needle to justify some huge costs of one time games. And what would joining the SL do? One of the advantages of being in the Big Sky is having the SL teams available for OOC games. Not saying that the schedule doesn't need some improvement but to think that the athletic department and Jones wouldn't prefer some better home games is just ignorant.

Agree on Bridges. Not a big guy but he's got some serious speed.

Pretty good OOC schedule, unfortunately mostly away. The home schedule is what it is. Surprised to see that USD isn't back on it yet, need to get them back in the OOC rotation, preferably opposite years of the XDSU's. Getting teams to travel for basketball isn't all that easy and its showing, might need to do some 2-1's to get some higher caliber teams if possible.

PJ Sparks will be playing at Arizona Christian. NAIA team and 2014 will be their first season of football. Best of luck to him.

Unfortunately most will be on the road. Not sure if there is any D-I OOC homes games outside of that one. Hopefully some of these are front ends of home/home or 2-1's or something.

I believe UW-Milwaukee will be playing at the Betty this year along with 3 or 4 sub D-1 games.

Not that we haven't went over it a thousand times, but it isn't negotiating when one party refuses to honor an offer they make when the other party accepts immediately after its offered. And it doesn't matter anymore. Taylor was the last piece left to the bad blood between the administrations.

Has anyone heard anything? The early portion of the summer league started Saturday and goes through Friday. The later and larger portion runs the 11th-21st. Would assume that Troy would be playing but haven't come across any announcements of him joining a team.

Once the athletic department gives their blessing for Forum Communications to do so.

Jordan Stevens named head coach of UND softball

What general rules are in place? And what FBS governing board? You keep talking about all these things in place to prevent it but haven't actually provided any of that. The only rules for being FBS are the ones a laid out a page or two ago. There is no limit to the amount of FCS teams an FBS conference can invite. 6 teams would be completely allowable at this point. Once those teams have transitioned fully to FBS schools and meet continuity rules, again, nothing is stopping them from breaking off and forming a new conference. Until you can provide actual documentation that there are rules currently on the books that would prevent this, you are wrong.

You keep talking about situations that would cause competition in geographical areas. The proposed situation doesn't come close to doing that. On top of that, the SunBelt helps Idaho and NMSU move on. These things make it more plausible.

Exactly the point. This is your interpretation, not what the rules say as written today. I'm not saying that the rules can't or won't change the rules to exactly what you're describing, but until they do what is being discussed could plausibly happen. I'm not so certain on your line of thinking about the NCAA being the ones who have the power to establish conferences either? They can determine the qualifications for teams being FCS or FBS, which is spelled out in the NCAA manual, but not sure they are the final say on the formation of conferences or can refuse to recognize them for reasons that are arbitrary. Again the rules could be changed, but this is centered on how they are written today. Once schools that transition from FCS to FBS have completed that transition, they would have the same rights as any other school to move or create a conference.

From your article:

Here's the only requirements and oversight that are laid out in the NCAA manual that I've seen (along with having a conference invite). FCS teams are already DI institutions, there isn't the stringent oversight you're discussing. Your scenario with the NSIC is completely different because it involves a move from from DII to DI.

I get what you're saying but point at which of the following aren't currently allowed under current rules: -Existing FBS conferences ability to invite 1 or more teams to move up to FBS -FCS teams having to follow proper protocol to transition from FCS to FBS -Existing FBS teams having the ability to create a new conference No one (almost) is saying that this is a likely scenario. All that is being said is that the current rules do not prevent it. Can they be changed? Of course. Is the scenario likely to play out? Pretty much zero chance. Do the rules, as currently written, prevent it? Not that anyone has pointed out yet.

Again, I don't think its likely to happen for many reasons. But is there actually something in the NCAA manual that could stop this scenario from playing out? If timed right, it would could be completed when the football TV contracts are being redone, I can't see them being excluded at that point for fear of anti-trust lawsuits. Maybe it does throw up red flags and some rules are changed, but at this point, I don't think anything in place legally could stop it from happening. I very well could be wrong, but no one has provided anything to the contrary on it. Or the Big East turning into the American Athletic Conference and "new" Big East. This one is probably more relevant when discussing splitting up portions of large money to an extra, newly formed conference.

I'm still talking about the possibility it would happen not whether is actually likely to happen. -Adding 6 teams would not be against any rules I've seen. I don't know of any measure in place that would allow the other conferences to stop the Sunbelt from doing it. Correct, inviting any teams up isn't a zero sum game, this isn't much different other than it being a few more teams. I don't know of anything that legal prevents this regardless of intentions or how it looks. (I was referring to it in terms of a new conference, at that point it is a zero sum game as the teams would already be FBS) -"Entrance" fees along with some sort of structure that offsets their loss in the $12 million could easily be put in place for the existing teams. I believe that GSU and App St had something in their invite that they didn't receive revenue immediately. -Again, only a 2-3 year issue, parts of which can be offset with non-conference guarantees that are well more than double of what the exact same team would be receiving as an FBS team once they are in year 2 and count as "FBS" wins (see Sicatoka's post) -It would be a 2-3 year agreement and if there were east-west divisions, you'd be looking at 1, maybe 2 away games cross-division for 2 or maybe 3 years. The SunBelt may actually be willing to do something along these lines as it would help them help Idaho and NMSU move on. The MWC and to a lesser degree the MAC wouldn't do it because it would be creating competition in their geographical region. No such concern with the SunBelt. -Fullerton wouldn't be killing football in the BSC, he's still have a full (though less competitive) conference while knowing that the other schools would come back as they would still have all other sports under the Big Sky umbrella. The Big Sky would then "manage" the operations of the FBS conference. You have some very valid arguments on the money side of it, but they are not insurmountable if teams really want to go FBS. On the legal side of it, I am not sure there is anything that can prevent it (that I have seen). In terms of practicality, very doubtful but doable. I'm not sold on it for many reasons but mainly because I don't think there is a rush to go FBS in the current landscape.

Again, my thoughts on it are being unlikely but I'm just looking at if it is actual plausible that it could happen: -The Sunbelt invites 6 Big Sky schools for football only and creates a western division (with Idaho and NMSU). The whole conference would never go. -Those 6 schools pay large "entrance" fees of $1-2 million, giving the other SunBelt schools a nice little bump to offset any sharing of other revenues they receive or even write the contract so that the new schools don't receive any league money until they are a full member. -After a few years when they have fully transitioned and are FBS teams, the western division breaks off and forms a new conference for football "Big Sky FBS" or something. No new FBS teams are created as the ones breaking off are full FBS members. Your zero sum game you keep bringing up. Yes a new conference is created, but the Big East split did exactly that in basketball. UND and Denver created a brand new hockey conference. I don't recall seeing any commentary on anyone outside of school presidents related to it voting on either of the matters. And in both cases, it required a new autobid to be issued to the national tournament and some sort of revenue sharing. I haven't read the NCAA bylaws to see who's approval is necessary, but I'm not certain that it needs to be voted on by NCAA membership. Now there would be some issues with the language of the current TV and playoff contract, but at that point it would be close to time to renegotiate anyway, would the other conferences really leave them out for fear of anti-trust issues? Just want to reiterate that I don't see it happening because there are way too many moving parts and uncertainty in the overall landscape but again, I don't think its impossible like you are claiming. And with the possible shifting of the P5, it likely doesn't matter.