JohnboyND7

They were nothing special. Some solid playmaker. QB's were not good.

Wow!

Look forward! Not backward silly

Maybe. Maybe not. I just don't know why a football program with 15 years of mediocrity would want to keep inbreeding with coaching hires. Find the best guy for the job. If he happens to have spent time in Grand Forks, great. But how likely is that? There are hundreds of college football teams. Thousands of coaches. Many of whom would love to an opportunity to build their resume at this level. Coordinators, big time position coaches take these types of jobs. Lower division head coaches like moving up.. Just need some imagination.

I think the best bet for UND would be to get new blood entirely.

Im confused, when did Pittsburgh join FCS?

It wouldn't be political suicide if the voters support it.

The fact we felt the need for two "big" schools was a huge oversight for the state. We should have done the Wyoming model and had one "flagship" or whatever. Yeah, we'd lose an annual football game but other than that... would be good for academics. Think of all the overhead we are dealing with now.

On a more serious note, I just don't see NIL being very big for NDSU/UND very often. Especially with collective action like promising it to incoming recruits or for nearly any G5. How much money are boosters willing to stuff in low level recruits pockets annually? What benefit will come of it? The amount of money boosters would need to pledge annually doesn't seem very feasible. I've seen Texas Tech and BYU are doing nice things that should basically give the kids $10-15K/year or something. That makes sense. They have a lot of alum, some of them have a lot of money. They are trying to put together a team to compete against the best teams in the country. NDSU/UND/regional recruiting rivals don't have that well of money available. Nor do the boosters have that incentive kf competing with something larger. For our schools, NIL is nice because it allows kids to make a few bucks. Get a sponsorship or something. I'm sure some of the high end hockey guys have been marketable for the hockey world. Tiktok and all that, I don't mind kids making some cash. I just don't see boosters at our level spending meaningful decision-changing money on a scale that's makes a big difference. Its one thing for A&M or Tennessee to drop millions of dollars to lure kids away from Alabama and compete for SEC championships. Its another for already small fanbases to dump money trying to out-do each other. Most G5 and probably all FCS schools don't have enough serious fans* to do that. *caveat: barring some superdonors like Ralph.

Wisconsin and Wyoming were also finalists

Recruiting should be pretty unaffected. The kids who can command any legitimate money out of high school don't and won't ever go to NDSU. Some guys who outperform their recruiting ranking will leave maybe. But that's a good problem to have and under current transfer rules, would happen anyway. They get a few kids with P5 "offers" (hard to tell often whether offers are actionable). But that's the exception, not the norm. Maybe that will dries up. As for the game: people are disappointed and should be. I think if they played ten times it would be a toss up. Both teams probably wish they had a few plays back lol

If online is all that is available, it's fine. People who want to learn will learn. We did a year of law school online and it was often ridiculous. Never seen so many young people have "technical problems." Professors understandably had their share as well. Normal for class to have 5-10% of class time get wiped. Generals...meh. Maybe not the end of the world. They charged way more for online credits when I was in undergrad so I never took one.

The service academies are wonky to play against. And UNI isn't anything to write home about.

They lose a ton of close games. Kinda wild.

They do sometimes. I've seen it a handful of times. Maybe you watch more NDSU athletics than I do. "Outside of football" is not particularly important. Neither University excels at the typical olympic sports to a level where it will generate Fandom. At least now. If we go to the bar in Jamestown or Bismarck and NDSU/UND are playing a basketball game on TV, rooting interest among the folks there will probably be determined by whether you are a bigger ndsu football fan or und hockey fan. There just isn't some big independent interest in either school's secondary athletic programs. Showing up at a fun destination game is all well and good. NDSU had a bunch of folks show up at Target Field for some nonsense bodybag game. I dont think either of those events tell us much about anything. Its a fun novelty thing.

NDSU is easier to be a fan of. At least right now. Better at sports. Football is bigger than hockey. And NDSU's absurd success there can't be understated. On a base level, NDSU SHOULD be bigger than UND under present circumstances. I wouldn't say it's anything super serious. Both schools fans are pretty casual. This ain't the deep south or anything.

I suspect most of the population growth was young single men...not exactly families

I think the B1G is not going to 20 without ND. I think they'll grab ND sooner or later. And i think they'll save space for them in the meantime. The haters may whine, but the Golden Dome guarantees eyeballs and attendance no other school does.

Oh it was very cringe to suddenly become Eagle superfans. I would cheer for whatever team a family member joined probably. But I'm not a gung-ho NFL or pro sports guy. Hope it goes well for C Dubs out in DC.

1. Tailgating makes any activity more fun. 2. It's really hard to artificially create cheers. NDSU tried it my freshman year. It was cringe. Needs to be organic. 3. When you say "white out", Winnipeg is not and never will be the image that pops into someone's head. 4. I'd go for a collegiate experience. People are there to watch a college hockey game. Not the Wild or the Jets. UND can have a great experience without being a pale imitation of a professional team. As is the case with all college venues, atmosphere comes from the student section. They'll need to take the lead on that.

Have fun! Nebraska games are supposed to be really fun. They haven't been good lately but they lost a lot of nailbiters last year I think.

True in part. False in part. I'll elaborate another time. I think it has more to do with priorities.

Stanford's "rivalry" with ND is 50% Notre Dame's desire to have an annual game in California and 50% the joy of said school being the best non-ivy/academy school in the country. Notre Dame has not had a reason to join the B1G until today. So you are wrong. ND is an elite school for one reason and one only.... the football team. Without the football team they would have been a generic Big East-esque team. The football team at Notre Dame might be the single most fascinating story in American sport. Nobody will ever find something more goofy.

In a sport with the parity of baseball...thats truly unbelievable.

Our last playoff win was.... like 2003?