UND/NDSU Football Rivalry

[UND Fan]

Virg Foss has a semi-interesting article today in the Herald regarding the continuance of the UND/SU football rivalry past this year. The challenge is that, with SU pulling out, UND will have 3 home NCC games and 5 on the road in 2004. It would be our turn to play in Fargo. That would mean 6 road games - something I am sure that we won't do.

As I have said before, although I don't know if SU's move up is a wise decision, I respect them for making it. However, as they have made this decision to play at another level, I do not think we should play them in the future. Let's, as they have done in the past, schedule more of the best DII teams in the country for our non-NCC games.

Men and women's BB was also discussed in the article. Unfortunately, I don't know how to attach the article to this post.

[BisonMav]

NDSU - UND Rivalry

The Fargo Forum back in May reported that a contract for four more years had been agreed to, but not signed. I could see them playing during the NDSU transition, but I am not really in favor of the game after the four years is up.

[UND92,96]

I believe Virg made a mistake with regard to UND's NCC schedule in '04. The article states that the Sioux have three home games and five road games in '04. However, in reality UND would likely have three home games and four road games, since everyone will play a total of seven conference games again next year, with UMD taking NDSU's place.

The article also states that non-conference games against Central Washington and Mesa St. are scheduled in GF, and a road game at New Haven is also scheduled. That leaves one more non-conference game to hopefully be scheduled, and that would most likely be a home game. From the standpoint of playoff positioning, UND would be better off playing one of the top NSIC teams, since all the other non-conference games are against out-of-region opponents.

[jimdahl]

Here is an old article that talks about the 4-year contract.

So here's the big question for those who know about this stuff better than I: How does losing to a D-IAA team affect your playoff chances in the new mathematical D-II playoff selection formula? That would probably be the primary determinant of UND's willingness to go get beat up in Fargo every couple years. NDSU would have an incentive to bring in UND if that remains one of their better selling matchups.

Another option going forward is that the two schools would make occasional two year home-away agreements, foregoing the payola for UND but getting a "big game" at home. I don't really see NDSU's incentive for this arrangement.

*This discussion assumes that in 5 years NDSU will be D-IAA but UND will remain D-II (which I personally don't find likely).

[tony]

Original Forum Article

DII's Motto: "To be the best you have to play the best (teams in the weakest conferences in your region, state, neighboring state or from a region designated by NCAA DII to be in your region for purposes of our deeply-flawed calculation.)" That's all you have to know about the future of DII right there.

It's up to UND, and always has been, whether to continue the rivalry or not. I'm not sure that refusing to sign the contract with NDSU is a wise decision, but there is no disputing that it is UND's decision to make.

I've decoded the Grand Forks Herald's story.

UND-speak: "Both UND and North Dakota State say they'd like to continue their rivalry in football past 2003, even after Bison move up a level to NCAA Division I-AA."

Translation: UND would like to continue the rivalry but not at the expense of a home game with Crookston or an away game at New Haven.

UND-speak: "With NDSU leaving, UND inherits NDSU's football schedule for the NCC in 2004, meaning the Sioux will be faced with just three league games at home and five on the road."

Translation: Not sure I can translate this. "UND inherits NDSU's schedule?" What the heck does that mean? Why would UND inherit NDSU's schedule as opposed to UMD (which would make sense)?

Why doesn't the NCC make a 2004 schedule with four home and four away games for each team? Oh wait, there are EIGHT teams in the NCC after NDSU leaves and UMD replaces them (let me see, 8-1+1=8) so it's impossible that UND has three home and five away NCC games in 2004 unless they're playing somebody more than once.

[The Sicatoka]

The original decision, that started this conversation, was a decision by NDSU to leave the NCC thus putting the game in jeopardy. Denying that denies fact.

Apparently the previous agreement remains unsigned. As with any contract a party can choose to sign or not. "Refuse" implies that it is something one party or another is compelled to do. That is not the case. Do we know why it remains unsigned? Do we know if either party has signed it?

Beyond that, that's a Virg Foss article. I wouldn't be surprised if Virg erred and wrote "UND" instead of "UMD" for who is taking over NDSU's scheduling slot. He barely gets his regular beat (hockey) right. Anyone expects him to understand football schedules or mathematics?

[tony]

Sicatoka, are you disagreeing with something I wrote? It's 100% UND's own decision whether to end the rivalry. Thomas has a contract on his desk, all he has to do to preserve the rivalry for four years is to sign it. Denying that denies both fact and logic.

BTW, saying that UND isn't refusing to sign a contract because they aren't compelled to doesn't make any sense at all.

It's fine to say that by leaving the NCC, NDSU put the rivalry in jeopardy but that argument has nothing to do with who makes the decision. I could just as well say that UND staying in DII put the rivalry in jeopardy. Or DII going into the crapper put the rivalry in jeopardy. Or the maybe the NCC schools other than UNC, USD, SDSU, and NDSU are to blame because they voted to stick with DII as it turns into the NAIA. Or how about the people who think that NDSU is going DI because Ralph built UND a hockey arena? I guess those people blame UND rather than NDSU.

Now I'm just picking on UND but reading the Herald's article, I wonder if there is any communication from Thomas and his coaches at all. Heck, Lennon was all but promising recent recruits that UND would be going DI and seems to expect that NDSU will be showing up on the schedule. Roebuck has no idea whether UND will be playing NDSU in 2004 in BB. Glas hasn't talked to Thomas about the NDSU-UND game at all.

These were your question, Sicatoka:

1. How do we know why it [the NDSU-UND game contract] remains unsigned?

2. Do we know if either party has signed it?

Here are the answers:

1. Thomas makes it clear as he is capable of that the reason the contract is unsigned is that UND doesn't have enough home games. I read that as he screwed up (why agree to away games when you know that the NDSU game would be on the road. Maybe he's hoping that by playing the victim, he can get NDSU to agree to come up to UND in 2004. NDSU might bail him out but would probably ask for two or three straight games at home to make up for it.

2. NDSU sent the contract to Thomas and announced publicly that they'd sign it. What more do you want?

I'm tending to agree with BisonMav on this except that if the rivalry is going to end, let it be now and let it be on Thomas's head.

[The Sicatoka]

What changed such that the games wouldn't be a normal part of conference play?

NDSU left the NCC. That is root cause.

That's who put the rivalry in jeopardy.

UND never asked to be put into the position of decision.

Based on the rest of that article, and items in it already shown to be questionable, I don't know if any of us really know what UND's future home and road dates are.

[bisonguy]

So here's the big question for those who know about this stuff better than I: How does losing to a D-IAA team affect your playoff chances in the new mathematical D-II playoff selection formula?

I found the point breakdown after extensive searching on the NCAA site:

CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW STUPID D2 IS BECOMING

Strength-of-schedule index

Win vs. a Division II at or above .750 10 points

Win vs. a Division I team 9 points

Win vs. a Division II team at or above .500 9 points

Win vs. a Division II team at or below .500 8 points

Loss vs. a Division II team at or above .750 6 points

Loss vs. a Division I team 5 points

Win vs. a non-Division I or Division II team 4 points

Loss vs. a Division II team above .500 3 points

Loss vs. a Division II team at or below .500 2 points

Loss vs. a non-Division I or Division II team 0 points

So, a win against an undefeated IAA, or IA opponent is worth the same as a win against a DII team with a record of .500-.750. A loss against a DI team is worth less than a DII team with a record above .750. It looks like UND will be better off playing one of the top teams in the NSIC, than NDSU in the future. At least for the sake of making the playoffs.

[tony]

Sicatoka, if NDSU were not leaving the the NCC, UND would still be scheduled to travel to NDSU, UMD would not be joining the conference, and UND would still have 3 home and 4 road games in the conference. NDSU leaving the conference changed nothing. UND still has the same number of home and away conference games and the same number of non-conference dates to fill.

[UND Fan]

Tony - While much of this discussion seems trivial, I don't understand your last post. With UMD replacing NDSU, UND will travel to Duluth instead of Fargo for their fourth NCC road game. If we go to Fargo, that truly is another road game.

With UND already having made a commitment to play at New Haven, that would mean that UND would play six road games next year. I am sure we are not interested in doing that. You know SU would never do that.

[tony]

It's pretty simple. UND would have four non-conference games and the same ratio of home to away games in 2004 regardless of whether NDSU left the conference or not. The Herald's article and Sicatoka tried to make it sound like this wouldn't have been the case. Roger Thomas has known what his conference schedule was going to be for a long time so if he signed a contract with New Haven already, that's his fault, not NDSU's. If he hasn't signed a contract with New Haven, why can't he replace that game with a home game rather than the NDSU game? That seems simple enough to understand.

I do agree that NDSU would not normally go for a five home, six away split. Most people would also agree with me that the difference between NDSU and UND is that NDSU is willing to work toward six home games by coughing up money, while UND isn't.

Does Thomas want NDSU to give up a home game because UND's too cheap to bring anybody in? If so, what does NDSU get out of the deal? And if UND doesn't play NDSU, who do they expect to bring in? It's either going to cost real money or they'll have to agree to a home and home. If they do a home and home, UND would be looking at six away games in 2005.

[The Sicatoka]

I think what I'm reading is that UND is set up where they, if they want to play NDSU, have to play six on the road in either 2004 or 2005:

2004: 4 conference road, at New Haven, (NDSU?)

2005: 3 conference road, at CWU, at Mesa, (NDSU?)

I won't even try to guess what's happening behind the scenes.

And I'm not even going to try to get into the nuances of football scheduling at this point.

All this for just football.

Somehow they are able to put together a 37-game hockey schedule (including exhibition games) for this season without all of this discourse. Bring on the home games against Boston College and Yale*!

* Yale closes out a home-home started last season there and BC starts a home-home running into next season, for all those that love this kind of stuff.

[Bison_Kent]

The Sicatoka,

I can't believe you are admitting Thomas messed up. Is that a first?

Now UND is asking NDSU to make up for his mistake. Regardless of NDSU moving up, NDSU should have the home game in 2003 which would give 4 road conference games.

I say if UND wants the two straight home games (like they did in the early 90s when the schedules were flopped or what ever), Let NDSU have three straight home to make up for it.

[jimdahl]

The Sicatoka,

I can't believe you are admitting Thomas messed up.  Is that a first?

I don't think there are many Sioux fans who are big fans of UND's recent football scheduling. If the athletic department's new riches can be used to build a new sports center for basketball, hopefully in future years they can also help the much more popular football program.

[The Sicatoka]

Kent:

Screwed up is too strong. I figure it's "chickens home to roost." They had a lot of home games scheduled for the opening two seasons of Alerus Center. Any time you do that you end up having to go on the road afterwards (if you didn't do it up front). It doesn't surprise me. It's all cyclic.

[Bison_Kent]

The Sicatoka,

I thought UND had Central Washington in a home and home as well as this year has Mesa State on the road after being home last year. It seems like a combination of two home and one away games has been the history of UND non-conference play. To me, this seems like if UND would pay out a little more, they could have most of those teams just in a home games. You will see that NDSU over the past 15 years only played 3 road non-conference games. These games were against top notch opponents that would draw fans the next year; like Montana, UC-Davis, and from the 1980s Northern Michigan.

I am not sure but what does MN-Crookston do for the Alerus Center attendence? Mesa State? Newberry? I would be very disappointed if these were NDSU's opponents and had home and home games with anyone of these teams.

Schedule better home and homes and maybe just schedule pansies that just come to Grand Forks. This might be a solution to always have more home games then road games. It seems to have worked for NDSU. Why not copy something else from NDSU?

[The Sicatoka]

I don't think there are many Sioux fans who are big fans of UND's recent football scheduling. If the athletic department's new riches can be used to build a new sports center for basketball, hopefully in future years they can also help the much more popular football program.

Bison Kent:

On this point, jimdahl and I completely concur.

[bisonguy]

New article in the Herald about the UND/NDSU rivalry-Games of jeopardy NCAA classification changes makes the much-anticipated rivalries between NDSU and UND .

Lennon makes absolutely no sense about the strength of schedule index, unless he is conceding that UND will have absolutely no chance of beating NDSU. He continually schedules sub -.500 d2 teams(some with zero or one wins), but a win over a IAA team is worth more than that. Here's the SSI from the NCAA site:

Strength-of-schedule index

Win vs. a Division II at or above .750 10 points

Win vs. a Division I team 9 points

Win vs. a Division II team at or above .500 9 points

Win vs. a Division II team at or below .500 8 points

Loss vs. a Division II team at or above .750 6 points

Loss vs. a Division I team 5 points

Win vs. a non-Division I or Division II team 4 points

Loss vs. a Division II team above .500 3 points

Loss vs. a Division II team at or below .500 2 points

Loss vs. a non-Division I or Division II team 0 points

I was a little suprised that Gene Roebuck was the only major coach with some cojones.

[Bison_Kent]

All I can say that not having NDSU on UND's schedule will hurt UND's attendence a lot more then it will hurt NDSU. With games against Montana and Montana State and other top I-AA schools on the schedule, NDSU will see a lot more fans in those games then UND will for scheduling the likes of Newberry and Mesa State.

Sure, I would love to see the UND rivalry continue but the way I see it will hurt UND's attendence every other year a lot more then NDSU. Roger Thomas knows this and I am sure does not want to loose that one game revenue every other year. Eventually, he will sign the contract.

As for scheduling, I will give UND another home game next year but will ask for two in a row in return to be played at Fargo. That is only fair.

[UND Fan]

Bison Kent (and Bison Guy) - I often wonder why you two spend so much time in this forum! You seem awfully concerned about UND, our programs and how we do things!

But Bison Kent, what the hell are you doing here at 4:18 in the morning. You have to have better things to do than to be in a Sioux website at that time!!

[jimdahl]

I like Kent and guy -- though not UND fans, they at least have knowledeable things to say; it's a pleasant contrast from some non-UND fans who don't actually seem to know anything about the Sioux but just come around to bash. The 4:00am is suspicious; my guess is computer programmer. I remember from my old days that all good programming is done at 4:00am.

On topic: I agree that Montana will be an easy sellout but wonder how often NDSU is going to be able to get schools like Montana/Maine to come to Fargo; I would guess not every season. I also think that unlike a true rivalry, fan interest in a ritual butt-kicking could diminish over time (I know some Bison fans would argue that NDSU will be competitive with Montana in a few years, which would invalidate my point, but I'm not too worried). I'll predict that NDSU will experience a pop in attendance from the warm glow surrounding the transition, but after a few years NDSU's "conference" games against even UC Davis and UNC would significantly underdraw UND. Once the dust settles, even if NDSU schedules a big name home opponent every other year, I would guess that UND would still also draw 19k compared to more like 12k for other small-time D-IAA opponents. The transition to D-IAA is expensive and NDSU needs to be increasing attendance, so I don't think NDSU's administrators are anxious to give up an easy sellout.

There's just too much in-state rivalry in all the small towns, too many UND grads in Fargo, too many "mixed" families for some distant rivalry to quickly replace this one. I know some Bison fans' hatred of UND is so intense that they want to think they've moved beyond UND and don't need this game, but this matchup is still a big guaranteed ticket for both teams. I think that could very well change in 10+ years if both schools stay on their current announced paths, but not in the next few.

[bisonguy]

I think the football game should at least be scheduled for the "proposed" next four years. After that, it can be reanalyzed to see if it is still beneficial to both teams.

Let's say there are 6,000 season ticket holders for UND football (just picked that number out of the sky- I would guess it is a little high, but we'll use it for the sake of example)- average price of a seat is about $13, so that generates $78,000. Now the other 7500 people will be paying $27.50 (not including ticket surcharges) =$206,250. Why would UND want to turn away a football game in which they can take in nearly $300,000- not including concession sales (which would be greater than any other games).

D2 and DIAA games can be competitive. UNC vs. Montana last year was tied going into the fourth quarter, but Montana's depth proved to be too much as Montana won 31-17. UC-Davis routinely beat up on IAA's when they were D2, and I believe they were even beating Montana going into the fourth quarter a few years back.

Jim and DMB,

I am a quasi-UND fan. I will be going to the Sept. 20th game vs. Newberry. I also do make it to one or two hockey games a year.

[UND92,96]

I'm torn on this issue. On the one hand, I do think that a typical Sioux football team of the past 10-12 years would be quite competitive with most any I-AA team, and in particular against one who is in the process of transitioning from dII to I-AA. However, I don't generally think that it makes much sense to risk a loss to a team with a decided scholarship advantage, when that loss is still going to hurt your playoff chances considerably.

I also think NDSU wants/needs this game more than does UND due to lack of any playoff possibility for the next 5 years, and the need to create some excitement that will bring fans out to the games. I don't think anyone in the proposed new football conference will create the same level of fan interest as does UND for the foreseeable future. A non-conference game against Montana? Possibly, but that's not a guarantee, just as it's not a guarantee that Montana would even agree to come to Fargo every two years.

While UND would likely miss the guaranteed sell-out, they would still likely draw a crowd of about 10,000 for any early-season non-conference game against a decent dII opponent. 3,500 tickets is not insubstantial, but it's not going to make or break the finances of the athletic department, either.

However, I'm all for continuing the basketball series. I see absolutely no reason to think that UND wouldn't more than hold its own in that series, especially on the mens side.

[NDSU grad]

UND92,96,

I think you're partly right, UND would have a fine attendance if they brought in a quality DII opponent. But when is the last time, and I'm not trying to be mean here, that UND brought in a quality non-conference opponent. I really think they have to start re-thinking their scheduling, especially with a 7 team NCC.