The Bobcat Nation

I know this has been discussed at length but w/ the Bison's big game @ Minnesota this weekend, where they are expecting a 50/50 crowd, I thought I'd vent!

I'm sure glad Sac and PSU have the clout in the Big Sky to keep NDSU out of the conference...God knows "we" (the Big Sky Conference) wouldn't want to be a part of all the attention they are getting, losing 1 game the last 2 years to UM (Gold and Maroon in Minnesota, not Maroon and Silver in Mazola) by 1 point! We also wouldn't want two of the top teams in the country in our conference would we? Its too bad Dougie and the rest of the presidents can't see that the Minneapolis area (the BSC and Dougie want "metropolitan" schools for the coverage and exposure which is why/how Sac and PSU got into the Big Sky) supports/covers/follows NSDU 10 times as much as Sacramento and Portland COMBINED! That wouldn't be good for "our" good ol' boy network out here, that's for sure!

It is my impression that UM, for some reason (wink wink)was also not that enthusiastic about NDSU joining the Big Sky.

duelalumnicat wrote:It is my impression that UM, for some reason (wink wink)was also not that enthusiastic about NDSU joining the Big Sky.

You obviously don't know what the hell you're talking about. The major concerns about the Dakotas came from the west coast and south teams (NAU, PSU, Sac) due to considerable logistical factors that would make it difficult to travel to those places. Think about the trip NAU would have to make to get to say, SDSU. They would bus two hours from Flagstaff to Phoenix, then fly from Phoenix to (most likely) Minneapolis. They would then have to bus 3-4 hours to Brookings. Sac, PSU and Eastern would have to go 2 time zones to play within the same conference. Those trips are fine for OOC games 1x per year, but to do it every year (for EVERY sport) is asking a lot.

Throw in the fact that the Dakota schools don't currently support the same sports that the BSC does, and you have plenty of problems.

As far as Montana not wanting NDSU, I encourage you to provide one shred of evidence to support that claim.

(edited for clarity)

If the only sport you're aware of is football, then it makes perfect sense to include the Dakotas. After all, football unquestionably generates the most revenue.

However, there are a lot of other sports besides football that lend credence to the logistical argument against including them in the conference.

This would be a non-issue if NDSU sucked at football, which they very well could in five years.

Cledus wrote:If the only sport you're aware of is football, then it makes perfect sense to include the Dakotas. After all, football unquestionably generates the most revenue.

However, there are a lot of other sports besides football that lend credence to the logistical argument against including them in the conference.

This would be a non-issue if NDSU sucked at football, which they very well could in five years.

Don't worry........NDSU will be a factor in football every year.

Cledus wrote:If the only sport you're aware of is football, then it makes perfect sense to include the Dakotas. After all, football unquestionably generates the most revenue.

However, there are a lot of other sports besides football that lend credence to the logistical argument against including them in the conference.

This would be a non-issue if NDSU sucked at football, which they very well could in five years.

I don't think this would be a problem...all of NDSU's other sports are excellent, too. If Fullerton was really committed to raising the RPI in basketball, he would have thought this one through a little more clearly. And why not add a women's basketball program whose coach has about the same record as Robin Selvig, but with 6 national championships. (Someone from NDSU tell me if this is right). I understand that it would be very difficult for most of the schools to get there, but I thought this move was a no-brainer. The Big Sky missed the boat, big time.

You're right NAU is a pain to get to/from for EACH AND EVERY BSC school currently! What a cop-out reason to keep NDSU, SDSU, UND, USD out....

Fargo and Sioux Falls (half an hour from Brookings) are both much bigger than Bozeman, Missoula, Cheney, Pocatello, Flagstaff, Greely, and Ogden w/ entire states as fan bases, the BSC (Doug Fullerton) obviously HATE that idea!

As far as other sports are concerned...that's simply another pathetic argument, MSU doesn't have soccer, who else has skiing, how many places have rowing, and I'm sure there's more examples!

Talk about missing the boat on a perfect opportunity to get 4 state universities, non-directional schools, in the Big Sky w/ excellent facilities and drop those high school gyms and football fields that sell a couple hundred tickets, as well as add to the strength of the conference! NDSU and UND are going to be in/contending for the playoffs for football on a regular basis, UM (hopefully MSU in the future) is the ONLY BSC school that can say that. NDSU, SDSU, and UND women's basketball programs are excellent and would compete immediately for conference titles.

Any one that thinks Portland or Sacramento are going to EVER care about their BSC schools is dreaming or on some "medication!" PSU is thought of in a worse light than Portland University in that city and more of a junior college for those that can't get into Eugene or Corvalis. And Sacramento, for the most part, doesn't even know or care that Sac St even exists.

duelalumnicat wrote:It is my impression that UM, for some reason (wink wink)was also not that enthusiastic about NDSU joining the Big Sky.

That is such B.S. Take it to smack.

The BSC is missing out on some great football from the Dakotas. Everyone knows how good NDSU has been playing the last 2+ years in jumping up to FCS play, but what goes under the radar that UND had beat NDSU the last 5 out of 6 meetings battling for the nickel trophy. It was a great rivalry, which will hopefully be resurrected when UND moves up in the next year or two. While the addition of these teams would obviously make it a tougher schedule for us i think overall it would have been an improvement to the conference.

WYOBISONMAN wrote:

Cledus wrote:If the only sport you're aware of is football, then it makes perfect sense to include the Dakotas. After all, football unquestionably generates the most revenue.

However, there are a lot of other sports besides football that lend credence to the logistical argument against including them in the conference.

This would be a non-issue if NDSU sucked at football, which they very well could in five years.

Don't worry........NDSU will be a factor in football every year.

Like Notre Dame? Miami? Florida State? Georgia Southern? Seriously, that's about the most ridiculous comment ever.

That being said, I've always been a big proponent of the Dakota Schools in the Big Sky. I think that SDSU and (especially) NDSU would have been great additions. Top-notch fans, facilities, tradition, you name it. I'm more than a little envious of what the Gateway's getting next year (and sad that the Sky didn't get their collective act together, add the Dakota schools and split into 2 divisions)...

In no ways do I mean this to be smack, but do you think Montata State will return their part of the home and home agreement that MSU signed with NDSU? NDSU has 4 open dates to fill next year. Just curious if you guys are hearing anything.

Wasn't that return game the one that was bought out when the opportunity to play at A&M opened up?

If so, I would assume that MSU wouldn't play that game at NDSU under the old arrangement, as it was apparently nullified under the buy-out provision.

I am no in way "in the know" on this though, so I could be wrong.

I'd certainly like to see MSU play a home and home with a school of the caliber of NDSU ... it's good for the sport. I'm not sure if the whole playoff scheme is really encouraging teams to make challenging schedules like that, though. It will be interesting to see how many teams start lining up as soft of schedules as they can going-forward in order to have good records for playoff consideration. If that happens, those non-schollie FCS schools (the ones that are often a step below the decent D-II schools) will be much in demand.

Bay Area Cat wrote:Wasn't that return game the one that was bought out when the opportunity to play at A&M opened up?

If so, I would assume that MSU wouldn't play that game at NDSU under the old arrangement, as it was apparently nullified under the buy-out provision.

I am no in way "in the know" on this though, so I could be wrong.

I'd certainly like to see MSU play a home and home with a school of the caliber of NDSU ... it's good for the sport. I'm not sure if the whole playoff scheme is really encouraging teams to make challenging schedules like that, though. It will be interesting to see how many teams start lining up as soft of schedules as they can going-forward in order to have good records for playoff consideration. If that happens, those non-schollie FCS schools (the ones that are often a step below the decent D-II schools) will be much in demand.

I didn't think that it was officially bought out but I could be wrong. I remember Gene Taylor(NDSU's AD) saying he was still holding out hope that MSU would come to NDSU and play. Georgia Southern can't make it to NDSU next year either. Home and home agreements have not been good to the Dakota schools during their transition.

Add the Dakota schools, send, N. Colorado, NAU, PSU & Sac to the great west, bam you've got a very powerful big sky, and a lot easier travel for everyone.

Montana
Montana St
Idaho St
Weber St
Eastern Washington
North Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota St
North Dakota St

That's how I understood it....that MSU bought out the NDSU game to play A&M. Not that they couldn't schedule them under a different arrangement I suppose.

I'm not really a fan of playing up to the likes of Iowa, A&M, etc. If you're going to play up play someone like Nevada. It's cool for the players to step onto the national stage and all....but then you have to schedule a D-II or similar school to make up for the expected ass-kicking you'll get the week before. So you end up playing two games with predictable scores. Not really fun (at least from this fan's perspective). I just think it'd be a lot more fun play the NDSU's and UNI's of the world.

WetWaderMT wrote:I know this has been discussed at length but w/ the Bison's big game @ Minnesota this weekend, where they are expecting a 50/50 crowd, I thought I'd vent!

I'm sure glad Sac and PSU have the clout in the Big Sky to keep NDSU out of the conference...God knows "we" (the Big Sky Conference) wouldn't want to be a part of all the attention they are getting, losing 1 game the last 2 years to UM (Gold and Maroon in Minnesota, not Maroon and Silver in Mazola) by 1 point! We also wouldn't want two of the top teams in the country in our conference would we? Its too bad Dougie and the rest of the presidents can't see that the Minneapolis area (the BSC and Dougie want "metropolitan" schools for the coverage and exposure which is why/how Sac and PSU got into the Big Sky) supports/covers/follows NSDU 10 times as much as Sacramento and Portland COMBINED! That wouldn't be good for "our" good ol' boy network out here, that's for sure!

I'll bet in time you'll be glad NDSU didn't get in to the Pig Sky.

Re/Max Griz wrote:Add the Dakota schools, send, N. Colorado, NAU, PSU & Sac to the great west, bam you've got a very powerful big sky, and a lot easier travel for everyone.

Montana
Montana St
Idaho St
Weber St
Eastern Washington
North Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota St
North Dakota St

In that scenario you could even leave in UNC (not that it would be great to have them) to make it an even 10 team league (for basketball traveling purposes). I like the looks of that conference though. Damn tough....

Cat-theotherwhitemeat wrote:

WetWaderMT wrote:I know this has been discussed at length but w/ the Bison's big game @ Minnesota this weekend, where they are expecting a 50/50 crowd, I thought I'd vent!

I'm sure glad Sac and PSU have the clout in the Big Sky to keep NDSU out of the conference...God knows "we" (the Big Sky Conference) wouldn't want to be a part of all the attention they are getting, losing 1 game the last 2 years to UM (Gold and Maroon in Minnesota, not Maroon and Silver in Mazola) by 1 point! We also wouldn't want two of the top teams in the country in our conference would we? Its too bad Dougie and the rest of the presidents can't see that the Minneapolis area (the BSC and Dougie want "metropolitan" schools for the coverage and exposure which is why/how Sac and PSU got into the Big Sky) supports/covers/follows NSDU 10 times as much as Sacramento and Portland COMBINED! That wouldn't be good for "our" good ol' boy network out here, that's for sure!

I'll bet in time you'll be glad NDSU didn't get in to the Pig Sky.

I'll bet not!

WetWaderMT wrote:You're right NAU is a pain to get to/from for EACH AND EVERY BSC school currently! What a cop-out reason to keep NDSU, SDSU, UND, USD out....

Fargo and Sioux Falls (half an hour from Brookings) are both much bigger than Bozeman, Missoula, Cheney, Pocatello, Flagstaff, Greely, and Ogden w/ entire states as fan bases, the BSC (Doug Fullerton) obviously HATE that idea!

As far as other sports are concerned...that's simply another pathetic argument, MSU doesn't have soccer, who else has skiing, how many places have rowing, and I'm sure there's more examples!

Talk about missing the boat on a perfect opportunity to get 4 state universities, non-directional schools, in the Big Sky w/ excellent facilities and drop those high school gyms and football fields that sell a couple hundred tickets, as well as add to the strength of the conference! NDSU and UND are going to be in/contending for the playoffs for football on a regular basis, UM (hopefully MSU in the future) is the ONLY BSC school that can say that. NDSU, SDSU, and UND women's basketball programs are excellent and would compete immediately for conference titles.

Any one that thinks Portland or Sacramento are going to EVER care about their BSC schools is dreaming or on some "medication!" PSU is thought of in a worse light than Portland University in that city and more of a junior college for those that can't get into Eugene or Corvalis. And Sacramento, for the most part, doesn't even know or care that Sac St even exists.

You are right about this. I just participated in a meeting with a guy from Sacramento who was a big sports fan. When I asked him if he followed Sac State football, he laughed in my face. My nephew just graduated from Gonzaga, and he said that nobody in the Spokane area cares about EWU. They all follow WSU and UW (and Gonzaga in BB, even when EWU had one of the best players in the nation playing for them in Rodney Stuckey) Part of the reason the BSC was so much better back in the day when it included BSU, UI, and UNR, was that most of the schools were "lead" institutions in their respective states, which made for much more interesting rivalries. The BSC has now lost that.

WetWader and John K: Thank you for saying what you said ... you just saved me the trouble of typing a rant that would have said the same things you guys did. Well said.

I don't know if Fullerton was the one who made the decision not to reach out to the Dakota schools, or if his hands were tied by the member school Presidents (presumably CSUS, PSU, etc.), but whoever made the decision to exclude the Dakotas certainly did a gross disservice to the BSC.