Goodbye NCC

[Gothmog]

C'mon!

The truth is that UND pulled the plug on the NCC. It was a perfectly viable DII conference until the day UND announced its move. Only pride and it's rivalry with NDSU forced UND to move. The Sioux could have stayed in the NCC indefinitely.

[GeauxSioux]

The last Nickel

[gjw007]

It has nothing to do with Montana, Montana State, or UNI. Those three schools were long gone from D2 when the NCC was in its prime (late '80s to early '00s). UNC, NDSU, and SDSU ruined the conference by jumping ship. Their departure lowered the number of quality teams in the conference from 7 to 4, forcing UND and USD to move up. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

You need to go back in history a bit further as NDSU also was declared national champs in the 60s and UND had also been successful. True, since the division came into play in the 1970s, NDSU and UNC won playoffs that declared the champs but the earlier years were also successful. I tend to think of the prime for the NCC in the 60s and 70s not the 80s or 90s even though by championships the 80s and 90s produced more trophies (think of the success in those eras and who they played).

Gothmog

The truth is that UND pulled the plug on the NCC. It was a perfectly viable DII conference until the day UND announced its move. Only pride and it's rivalry with NDSU forced UND to move. The Sioux could have stayed in the NCC indefinitely.

Almost everybody expected UND and NDSU to move up together; the surprise was that they didn't. UND had some items going on for the moment and didn't want to make the rush. NDSU felt the need to move, so why wait. In true, both should have moved up with Montana, Montana State, and UNI in the 70s. UNC or even NDSU didn't start the dominoes for the demise of the NCC. In fact, you almost say that Morningside pulling out was the trigger as the expectations had been there for UND/NDSU to move up and USD/SDSU were expected to follow suit. If Morningside hadn't left, there would still have been enough members left in the NCC to survive, unfortunately as a shell of itself (no offense to the remaining teams but most were seldom at the top of the final standings). You could put the blame on the 4 Dakota schools but it was a known factor that it was only a matter of time before each would move up.

[NDSUFREAK10]

DaveK......FCS or NCC...pick one you would rather be apart of.

[Cratter]

Everyone knows (whether admitting it or not) UND was the flagship school in the North Central Conference.

Everyone (especially the presidents at other schools) knew that once UND left the conference. The conference was over.

Look for UND to anchor another strong conference not to far in the distant future.