JohnboyND7

I am a little surprised NDSU's ace was able to have a complete game shutout. I am EXTREMELY surprised UND's pitcher kept NDSU at bay. Sucks for him that it was an unearned run. Can't be a good feeling to have had your best game of the year and the team loses.

Notre Dame's time is coming.

If UND goes to some Air-Raid crap I'd imagine it is a mistake. Almost everyone in the BIg Sky chucks it around. Someone needs to be the Ground-N-Pound. Plus you can pound the rock in the rain, in the wind, in the snow, in a dome. Air-Raid crap is annoying and soft. Run the ball.

I had a bad feeling about Oregon. I haven't read into the extent of their crap, but teams don't randomly become awesome like they did without selling a bit of their soul. Just a matter of time til we find out Saban and the Crimson Tide have been cheating as well. FBS football is very corrupted now, which is just unfortunate considering football's place in the american sports world.

....This is sad that no one noticed he screwed up. Ohio State did not play for the National Championship. Auburn and Oregon did. It will be interesting to see what happens to Auburn. The NCAA did their investigation and then closed it. Sounded like Cam and Auburn were safe. His Dad though, was trying to sell his son basically. Ohio State played Arkansas and got to keep all their suspended players for that one last game. FBS is lame. Very money driven.

Really opens up the Big Sky this year. Montana St and EWU are probably ecstatic that they are now probably definitely 1 and 2. If UND capitalizes they could sneak into that 3 spot if any/many key Montana players leave or are dismissed. Playoffs for UND now are much more realistic. Should be extremely interested to see the Sky this year.

players do it for the fans. I don't imagine the players at either school particularly care about the other unless they have friends who play on the other team. The only reason the coaches would care is if the other school is having a tough time, then recruiting will come easier. Fans on both sides care plenty. I don't know many people at NDSU who actually care about the wrestling team. We are aware that they are generally pretty solid, and won some championships back in the D-2 days, but other than that, they are an afterthought. Yep, there are a few D-2 and D-3 schools, and a ton of schools that I have no idea what level they are. All I know is that Minnesota generally is awesome and so are some other other B1G and Big 12 schools.

Um, I've seen someone on here with their signature showing UND's record in sports against the other Dakota schools. So isn't that one of your people comparing themselves to the the other schools, none of whom are in a conference with you? NDSU's existance depends on our ability to win championships in football and the other sports. UND is no flagship anymore. A flagship would imply it is significantly larger than the other schools. NDSU and UND are now roughly the same size. And even if UND was this "flagship" you speak of, why would I care? NDSU won 8 football championships in the College Division and Division II. Added another one in FCS this season. So while NDSU, "Moo U", "The AC", was being the little brother winning 9 championships, UND, "Flagship", Big Brother, won 1? I don't recall NDSU fans rushing the court after beating UND in basketball last season. I don't recall Saul Phillips declaring the win "One of the biggest in our history." Most NDSU fans I know don't deny still being relatively interested or in some cases very interested in what goes on up in Grand Forks. So...you have a fan base who cares more about winning a conference tournement than making it to the Frozen Four? (Minnesota is guilty as well, not just UND)

1200 less...with two teams who claim to be a big deal...playing in the state of hockey and home to one of the teams.... and about 4-5 hours from Grand Forks.

Learn to read. I said "to go to the Frozen Four," not the Frozen Four.

The Valley and the Big Sky are pretty comparable for football. Greeley? NoCol football sounds like a big show in town. Missoula? Great football tradition and great venue. Northern Arizona? Sounds a little far away, doubt many fans will trek out there. Southern Utah? Anything outside of BYU, Utah, and Utah State is irrelevant in Utah. Weber State? Also in Utah right? Bozeman? Great venue and a solid program. I listed the top teams and some of the other ones right there. Thats great if they are "the show" in town. https://admin.xosn.com/pdf8/673802.pdf?SPSID=43210&SPID=3829&KEY=ESZIGVSSFOSGQWY.20100223160142&DB_ACCOUNT_TYPE=AGENT&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=9700 This is the stats for 2009. The year NDSU went 3-8. The Big Sky, with all their BIGTIME teams, averaged fewer fans per game despite having Montana leading the nation in attendence and even in having more home games, had fewer total fans come through the gates. Sounds like the Valley sure blows compared to the Sky. Near future? UND known for travelling well? Hmm...The "X" had I believe 11-12,000 people there this weekend for Minnesota Vs. UND. The X holds a lot more than 11 or 12,000. If you people aren't even willing to drive to Minneapolis for a hockey game...to go to the FROZEN FOUR...against your RIVAL..why should anyone think any of you would go to Texas for a championship game? UND doesn't travel well for football and you know in your heart that if UND made it to Frisco, that they would be more in line with the Delaware/EWU game of 2011. Accept it and move on.

Brookings, now Vermillion and Omaha(if the team is doing well), Tulsa is out of the equation now. If, and only if, the Bison are having a good season, I can drive to games. I have only taken the time to go to Brookings, but with USD and Omaha joining up, if the team is good, I'll make an effort to go watch. I should have phrased it differently, and pointed out that my getting in the car to watch games, I also was including the MVFC football games as well. I tend to look at the Summit/MVFC as the same thing even though they are seperate.

Very poorly put together post, but a post anyway, I have never said I have "moved on." I enjoy when NDSU and UND play against each other in competition, and all the smack talk that goes along with it. I don't really see the point in smacking the Summit for basketball. SDSU gave Baylor a pretty good game. Montana got absolutely demolished by Wisconsin. Neither league is exactly awesome. That is great that UND has had success in hockey. Those are some big-name schools on your list. Newsflash, they aren't big-name schools because they are good at hockey. I notice that when you list the teams UND plays in hockey, you forget to list Bemidji State, St. Cloud St., Duluth, Mankato, Colorado College, and a host of other D-2 or D-3 nobodies. If hockey was nationally big, such as football, and all the big names put teams on the ice, you know darn well that UND would be irrelevant. UND is very good at a sport that is not big outside of a few areas (Northeast, Michigan, Minnesota). It is not stepping up to "play the big boys" when 30-some of the 60 or so teams are D-2 and D-3. Say UND was dominating basketball, baseball, or football, I'd say well done! But hockey...is a different animal to compare things to considering very few division 1 programs play it. Football, is more difficult to be good at. Always has been, always will be, and to those bigger schools you listed, always will be more important. Ask Michigan fans what they love most? Bringing home a football title. Wisconsin more known for the Kohl Center? or Camp Randall? Who is the most famous athlete from Boston College and most loved? Doug Flutie. Competing against a significantly larger playing field makes for a tough time. Competing against the likes of Texas, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, etc. in football is not possible for a school in our area. They have coaches who make more money than our entire football budget has for a season. The fact that Boise State was able to successfully build a team that can occasionally compete with the best teams is impressive, but not everyone can be so fortunate as they have been. So NDSU competes against the likes of Northern Iowa, Montana, Montana St., SDSU, Georgia Southern, etc. because that is how the system is. If you feel the need to smack on the FCS system, maybe you should contact your school administration and ask them to return to Division 2. After all, you seem to care more about hockey. Moving up to Division I about destroyed the University of Northern Colorado's program. Or pull a Nebraska-Omaha and totally drop football, after all, what is the point of playing football if you can't play against Alabama and LSU? This year, now that you ask, I chose not to go to the SDSU game on the road, NDSU's team really faded after Christmas and I didn't feel like wasting money to go see SDSU beat us. I made the trip up to Grand Forks for the basketball game. However, for football, I was able to travel to the SDSU game, and the Minnesota game. This season I will be able to hit up the Colorado State game, the UNI game, and USD game. That means 3 road trips and none of them will be too terribly long.

I am a big Irish fan. Must say I don't know any delusional fans anymore. The delusional ones were the bandwagon ones who stuck around a tad longer because Notre Dame generally rocks at football. But with Notre Dame still being pretty average, the delusional ones are gone. And now it is just to sad people like me left to cry after yet another 5-6 loss season.

You sir, made little-no sense. I'd say NDSU has a kid (football? 9 titles). The Sky is a fine conference, if NDSU wasn't in the Valley/Summit, they'd be in the Sky by now. I for one, enjoy the Valley a lot. The Summit as well. I enjoy being able to get in the car and go watch some games. UND benefitted from going D-1 at a time that the Sky really was looking at expansion. This is obvious by looking at the schools that are going to the Big Sky next year. But hey, tell yourself whatever you have to. Have fun with the nickname stuff. I hear popcorn speculation has prices continuing to rise for awhile longer. Oh, and tell Hakstol thanks, won a bit of cash on his "honor roll" kid this weekend.

Making it best of 3, all on the road, your basically telling the home team, "Hey, as long as you don't totally suck it up, your moving on." 1 game. Make it count. Can you imagine the 1980 Olympics if the US had to play against the Soviets best 2 out of 3? And you realize that football does not use that format. Football says, "You got one game. Let's see who is better." I like it that way. Agree to disagree.

Best of 3 is lame. Gives the better teams too big of an advantage. They already get to play at home...now you want the crappier team to pull off two upsets? That is asking a lot. Now if you want to make it a best of 3 with game 2 being at the lower seeded team, it would be fair. But then you have both teams traveling a lot and taking up time which is also lame. No best of 3.

FCS football will never be what DII is now. DII trashed all the scholarships. They wouldn't do that to FCS. But if they for some reason did, NDSU would again be forced to find a new home for football, and that home would be in a higher division. I'm guessing UND would wait a few years to see NDSU be successful before jumping up. If FCS gets to the point of being a pathetic shell of its former self, the Big Sky will get hit hard too with Montana and Montana State bailing. I hope everything gets worked out and NDSU/UND, and any other school who has some dreams of being at a level they can compete at, can find a steady safe home.

Seems like someone is mad that UND got handled in the playoffs, in the city where the opponent was from.

What is FTA? That sounds like a cool deal.

All I said was I'd imagine hockey isn't getting the ratings lacrosse is providing. If you have two shows, and one of them isn't getting that good of ratings, you take it off the air and put a different show in the timeslot. As I stated, there could be other reasons, but those require people to start looking and different scenarios rather than just the basic reason certain shows are on tv and others are not. And as for the NDSU fans who aren't able to attend games, sucks to be them, better start emailing ESPN now then so by the time football is here, they can watch the game at home. I do believe a lot of places do in fact have espn3. The people I know from places other than North Dakota usually have it or have little trouble finding a bar that has it or ESPNU. Sometimes if you want to see a game of FCS football or NCAA hockey, you are going to have to put in some work to see it. Yeah, it is inconvenient, but it is part of life.

Well just throwing it out there that if you want to watch a game, there is usually a way. You do realize that ESPN is doing what is good for them then, if hockey is so popular, by putting it on ESPN3 or ESPNU. This encourages people to complain to ISP's for ESPN3, and to get ESPNU long term. Maybe UND hockey would get better ratings, but from what I hear and see, it is tough to know considering how popular lacrosse is getting, especially out on the coast. NDSU was screwed out of having a couple games on tv, not like I cared, I live in Fargo and can go to the games if I want. I also am able to travel to away games if I feel a need to. It definitely would blow if they bugged out early on a hockey/football/any sport I follow to go to a lacrosse game...to me, lacrosse is weak and looks like something we'd screw around with in gym class. I could not find any numbers suggesting lacrosse is more popular. I am guessing there is some reason why ESPN would rather have lacrosse on instead of collegiate hockey. Lacrosse getting better numbers is just one theory, the ESPN3/ESPNU effort to get more widespread and using the hockey/fcs to get it more common could make sense as well. Lacrosse is getting big and more widespread now, nothing would surprise me anymore when it comes to it. Maybe don't get so butthurt next time someone makes a comment.

I'd imagine that the regular season lacrosse gets better ratings if it is getting the television time. Either way, it is on ESPN 3 correct? Go watch on that. If you don't have that, go to a bar and they might.

I'll take 'Sota. Unless they can't put that third period behind them from a week ago...but if both teams play normal, 'Sota 2-0 or 2-1.

and 15,000 people who never go to the games to start going regularly....