Charger

How do Div. I-A schools average only 80 scholarships for men when they give out 85 for football only? Is that suppose to be Div. I-AA or is it a collection of all DI schools, no matter their football designation? Also are DI-AA non scholarship programs involved in the Average Expense category?

Or just think of the media market that Denver could offer. Does anyone have the numbers for how many houses FSSN reaches. Denver makes since for the Big Sky, UND not so much. I think that UND will eventually be in the Mid-Con.... If they are lucky. I don't think they would get into the Big Sky without NDSU. A travel partner makes going to the Dakotas a lot more do-able, but I still do not think the the Big Sky members sees the advantage of expanding to the Dakotas.

That stills covers a pretty small market. Only seven communities in Minnesota? I just do not think that FSSN is that big of an asset.

Do you guys know where FSSN actually broadcast? I live in South Dakota, but I don't get the channel. I have a feeling it doesn't cover as much area as you like to think. Does the Big Sky really care if they can broadcast to most of North Dakota and parts of South Dakota and Minnesota. I don't think so. UNC was added because they get broadcasted in a major metro area. FSSN doesn't cover anything close to a major metro area. Good luck with the BSC membership.

SDSU has increased their budget from $4.3 million while in D2 to over $6.5 million (last years numbers) and I assume it is higher this year, and it will be higher next year. South Dakota has also lowered out of state tuition starting next year. This will mean our scholarship dollars will go ever further. Education is also cheaper in SD, so although we do not use as much of our budget for scholarships as other schools we could still have just as many scholarships. Now UNC on the other hand only has a budget of S4.87 million and they are a year ahead of us. By the end of the transition we will have a large enough budget to be successful at the DI-AA level ($2.5-$3 million more by your estimates). Does anyone exactly how much of the UND budget is used for hockey? You guys already have a $10 million dollar budget, but I'm guessing 1/3 to 1/2 of that goes towards mens and womens hockey.

As an SDSU fan I do not care if UND goes DI if it helps us secure a conference. I think that your facilities are great, but I'm not sure your men's basketball team would ever be a huge draw with hockey going on at the same time. Football would probably be competitive as well as Women's basketball. It will all come down to money and if you can raise enough to make the move. I realize you guys already have a large athletic budget, but hockey takes it's fair share of that. Still, I expect you will make the decision to move up this Spring. I'm not sure how getting into the BSC would work however with you guys being a couple years behind us in the transition. We would be in a much better situation if you guys had moved up at the same time.

Luckily real coaches are thinking about it and scheduling games. If coaches are scheduling the Jacks in the first year of transition, when we don't belong to a conference, they will definately schedule us in the future. Here's the Jacks DI opponets so far next year: Men's BB Nov. 19, at Butler Nov. 27, at Manhattan Dec. 1, at Wisconsin-Milwaukee Dec. 4, at SE Missouri St. Dec. 11, at Denver Dec, 22, at Tennessee State Jan. 3, at San Diego St. Jan. 17, at UMKC Jan. 29, at Arkansas St. That's nine games, plus I think there's a tournament.

Nope. You've been wrong before with your great sources, so I have no reason to believe this. I'll believe it when I see it in the headlines. I have just as much, if not more inside info then you legend, so I'm not worried. You're right Corella I don't know about baseball, but my personal opinion is that it's not going anywhere. Maybe they'll surprise me, I don't know. As far as football though, State isn't going to drop football.

I don't think SDSU is going to drop baseball. In all the reports and plans for the move to DI, baseball is included. I don't think they'll add scholarships or anything, but I think it will stay around. I think other sports like tennis or swimming would be cut before baseball. USD dropped their program because they were in a lot of problems with title 9 and finances in general. Us dropping football is crazy. Did you hear that from the same person that said AJ was going to Mankato and taking players with him? That was a from a "very very reliable source", right Legend?

What does USD dropping baseball have to do with SDSU ans their success at DI. Unlike USD we have alumni that donate to our sports programs. This might actually be a good thing for SDSU, because the state is being forced to raise student fees for USD, so the same should happen at SDSU. I guess I don't see the corelation between a different school with different administrators and their inability to run an athletic department and SDSU's success at DI, but hey why don't you show me the way.

Don't teams in the Patriot League offer some kind of scholarships. I think they offer money, but they call it a different name. I'm pretty sure I saw a thread about this on anygivensaturday.com.

I have heard that the reason that Southern Illinois didn't host a playoff game was because of finances rather than their performance on the field. I believe thir AD didn't think they could afford it. I'm not sure how they drew a seeded team in the first round though.

I personally don't think the SDSU-USD football rivalry is as important as NDSU-UND. The SDSU-USD basketball rivalry is more important. Usually Augie is the football school and USD is the basketball school, so we have rivalries with them in their respective sports. If you look at attendance, it really doesn't go up that much when we play USD in football. I think it's a bigger deal for USD than it is for SDSU, but they still seem to think we need that game and if we want to play them, we need to come to the Dakota Dome with a "sack of money" as their radio broadcasters said. Good Luck.

There is no way enough NCC teams will move up to make a conference. UND is the only other team that should even think about it. I don't think the other NCC schools have the funding, facilities, or support to make it work.