Mountain west/NDSU

[Cataholic]

I just have zero interest see our ceiling almost every year being the New Mexico Bowl against a Conference USA opponent. What is there to root for all season if you're 99% of the Group of 5? A one game participation trophy for being a mediocre or better football team? A couple extra practices to get us to the 68 Ventures Bowl in Mobile? Some of you are taking for granted what being a big fish in a small pond is like, and it won't be as fun to end up as a small fish in the entire ocean where nobody cares about us. While playing teams like Wyoming would be fun, all the teams in the MWC that I wanted us to play have just gotten poached by the PAC, and they sure as hell aren't inviting us

I am predicting that the G5 will have a playoff in 3 to 4 years. It is already being discussed.

[Bocephus]

I just have zero interest see our ceiling almost every year being the New Mexico Bowl against a Conference USA opponent. What is there to root for all season if you're 99% of the Group of 5? A one game participation trophy for being a mediocre or better football team? A couple extra practices to get us to the 68 Ventures Bowl in Mobile? Some of you are taking for granted what being a big fish in a small pond is like, and it won't be as fun to end up as a small fish in the entire ocean where nobody cares about us. While playing teams like Wyoming would be fun, all the teams in the MWC that I wanted us to play have just gotten poached by the PAC, and they sure as hell aren't inviting us

I am predicting that the G5 will have a playoff in 3 to 4 years. It is already being discussed.

I agree, better to get positioned before the G5 playoffs take shape and they slam the door.

[Bocephus]

I just have zero interest see our ceiling almost every year being the New Mexico Bowl against a Conference USA opponent. What is there to root for all season if you're 99% of the Group of 5? A one game participation trophy for being a mediocre or better football team? A couple extra practices to get us to the 68 Ventures Bowl in Mobile? Some of you are taking for granted what being a big fish in a small pond is like, and it won't be as fun to end up as a small fish in the entire ocean where nobody cares about us. While playing teams like Wyoming would be fun, all the teams in the MWC that I wanted us to play have just gotten poached by the PAC, and they sure as hell aren't inviting us

I am predicting that the G5 will have a playoff in 3 to 4 years. It is already being discussed.

I agree, better to get positioned before the G5 playoffs take shape and they slam the door.

The Sunbelt East is pretty much all former FCS.

[Utcatsfan]

I just have zero interest see our ceiling almost every year being the New Mexico Bowl against a Conference USA opponent. What is there to root for all season if you're 99% of the Group of 5? A one game participation trophy for being a mediocre or better football team? A couple extra practices to get us to the 68 Ventures Bowl in Mobile? Some of you are taking for granted what being a big fish in a small pond is like, and it won't be as fun to end up as a small fish in the entire ocean where nobody cares about us. While playing teams like Wyoming would be fun, all the teams in the MWC that I wanted us to play have just gotten poached by the PAC, and they sure as hell aren't inviting us

Newsflash: nobody cares about us now.

I beg to differ. The FCS media, FCS fans, and many of the top FCS programs care about us.

On the national stage nobody cares and that's what it seems like damnyoutuesday was referring to. They don't care much about the G5 either but they care more than about the FCS. I'm not saying that my argument for moving up is that nobody cares about the FCS so much as that saying nobody cares about the G5 bowls isn't an argument against moving up.

I mentioned it above but most of those bowl games no one cares about do better/have more viewers then the FCS Championship game so you're correct it's not an argument.

There is more $$ in FBS and I personally would prefer to play games against Nevada, Wyoming, UTEP then Portland State, Northern Colorado etc.

[coloradocat]

I just have zero interest see our ceiling almost every year being the New Mexico Bowl against a Conference USA opponent. What is there to root for all season if you're 99% of the Group of 5? A one game participation trophy for being a mediocre or better football team? A couple extra practices to get us to the 68 Ventures Bowl in Mobile? Some of you are taking for granted what being a big fish in a small pond is like, and it won't be as fun to end up as a small fish in the entire ocean where nobody cares about us. While playing teams like Wyoming would be fun, all the teams in the MWC that I wanted us to play have just gotten poached by the PAC, and they sure as hell aren't inviting us

Newsflash: nobody cares about us now.

I beg to differ. The FCS media, FCS fans, and many of the top FCS programs care about us.

On the national stage nobody cares and that's what it seems like damnyoutuesday was referring to. They don't care much about the G5 either but they care more than about the FCS. I'm not saying that my argument for moving up is that nobody cares about the FCS so much as that saying nobody cares about the G5 bowls isn't an argument against moving up.

I mentioned it above but most of those bowl games no one cares about do better/have more viewers then the FCS Championship game so you're correct it's not an argument.

There is more $$ in FBS and I personally would prefer to play games against Nevada, Wyoming, UTEP then Portland State, Northern Colorado etc.

[tetoncat]

I just have zero interest see our ceiling almost every year being the New Mexico Bowl against a Conference USA opponent. What is there to root for all season if you're 99% of the Group of 5? A one game participation trophy for being a mediocre or better football team? A couple extra practices to get us to the 68 Ventures Bowl in Mobile? Some of you are taking for granted what being a big fish in a small pond is like, and it won't be as fun to end up as a small fish in the entire ocean where nobody cares about us. While playing teams like Wyoming would be fun, all the teams in the MWC that I wanted us to play have just gotten poached by the PAC, and they sure as hell aren't inviting us

Newsflash: nobody cares about us now.

I beg to differ. The FCS media, FCS fans, and many of the top FCS programs care about us.

On the national stage nobody cares and that's what it seems like damnyoutuesday was referring to. They don't care much about the G5 either but they care more than about the FCS. I'm not saying that my argument for moving up is that nobody cares about the FCS so much as that saying nobody cares about the G5 bowls isn't an argument against moving up.

FCS regularly gets shout outs on Game Day and other ESPN shows I think due to championship game and some conference contracts. But when they show games there is no pregame or halftime discussion that is all power 4 or top 25 talk.

Bowl games get more viewership because there is not much else to watch for sports that time of year typically

[tetoncat]

I just have zero interest see our ceiling almost every year being the New Mexico Bowl against a Conference USA opponent. What is there to root for all season if you're 99% of the Group of 5? A one game participation trophy for being a mediocre or better football team? A couple extra practices to get us to the 68 Ventures Bowl in Mobile? Some of you are taking for granted what being a big fish in a small pond is like, and it won't be as fun to end up as a small fish in the entire ocean where nobody cares about us. While playing teams like Wyoming would be fun, all the teams in the MWC that I wanted us to play have just gotten poached by the PAC, and they sure as hell aren't inviting us

Newsflash: nobody cares about us now.

I beg to differ. The FCS media, FCS fans, and many of the top FCS programs care about us.

On the national stage nobody cares and that's what it seems like damnyoutuesday was referring to. They don't care much about the G5 either but they care more than about the FCS. I'm not saying that my argument for moving up is that nobody cares about the FCS so much as that saying nobody cares about the G5 bowls isn't an argument against moving up.

I mentioned it above but most of those bowl games no one cares about do better/have more viewers then the FCS Championship game so you're correct it's not an argument.

There is more $$ in FBS and I personally would prefer to play games against Nevada, Wyoming, UTEP then Portland State, Northern Colorado etc.

But those games will be lime the current one against top of conference and playoffs. There will still be a bottom 1/3 of league that are not good games if Cats maintain level of play and can stay as a top team.

[damnyoutuesday]

I also want to throw out that if we move up, we'll definitely have more non-saturday games on our schedule. Maybe not MACtion type games, but Thursday and Fridays will not be out of the question

[coloradocat]

I also want to throw out that if we move up, we'll definitely have more non-saturday games on our schedule. Maybe not MACtion type games, but Thursday and Fridays will not be out of the question

How many more? One or five? How many home and how many away? How many weeknight games has each MWC team had for each of the last three seasons as a benchmark for what we'd have if we joined them?

[Montanabob]

I also want to throw out that if we move up, we'll definitely have more non-saturday games on our schedule. Maybe not MACtion type games, but Thursday and Fridays will not be out of the question

How many more? One or five? How many home and how many away? How many weeknight games has each MWC team had for each of the last three seasons as a benchmark for what we'd have if we joined them?

as much as espn2 sucks, i hate Saturday night starts at 8:15 pm. would we get more or less of those.

[RKMCMT]

NDSU has set the standard in the FCS. Now, let them set the standard of the State schools moving up too. Let them show them we can be competitive, we have great fans, and we can provide a decent media market (although NDSU's media market is vastly greater than both Montana schools combined).

About 265k for Fargo vs 200k for Missoula/Butte-Bozeman combined.

Not sure I'd qualify that as "vastly", but it is certainly meaningful.

UM and MSU's functional media market is Montana. Which is quite a bit larger than North Dakota nowadays. Plus a bunch of the Fargo metro is Minnesota-side which I'm guessing dilutes the fan base somewhat.

[BleedingBLue]

I also want to throw out that if we move up, we'll definitely have more non-saturday games on our schedule. Maybe not MACtion type games, but Thursday and Fridays will not be out of the question

How many more? One or five? How many home and how many away? How many weeknight games has each MWC team had for each of the last three seasons as a benchmark for what we'd have if we joined them?

as much as espn2 sucks, i hate Saturday night starts at 8:15 pm. would we get more or less of those.

Each MW team can expect to play 2 Friday night games a year. They can also expect at least 2 Saturday night games on CBSSN, FS1, or ESPN/ESPN2.

[RockyBearCat]

I also want to throw out that if we move up, we'll definitely have more non-saturday games on our schedule. Maybe not MACtion type games, but Thursday and Fridays will not be out of the question

How many more? One or five? How many home and how many away? How many weeknight games has each MWC team had for each of the last three seasons as a benchmark for what we'd have if we joined them?

as much as espn2 sucks, i hate Saturday night starts at 8:15 pm. would we get more or less of those.

Each MW team can expect to play 2 Friday night games a year. They can also expect at least 2 Saturday night games on CBSSN, FS1, or ESPN/ESPN2.

I am very curious if that changes after they lose their upper half to the PAC##

[Bobcat4Ever]

There is demand for tickets because we have a winning program. People seem to forget how dead the stadium was back in the days of the streak. Now people are lobbying to a return to meaningless football in Bozeman. Attendance will suffer if they get their way.

The '90s aren't coming back and the list of programs that have been able to maintain or increase their level of fan interest and attendance after moving up to FBS is growing longer by the year. It's crazy to me how pessimistic everyone seems to be about MSU being able to compete against a higher level of competition, when they showed in the first game of this season that they absolutely can do it even with the scholarship limitations of being in the FCS right now. And football doesn't all of a sudden become meaningless because there's no national championship to play for. Is the MSU basketball program meaningless because they'll never be able to win the NCAA Tournament? Of course, it seems to be a moot point right now since no invitation appears to be forthcoming any time soon for MSU to move up to the FBS level.

Get out of here with your use of logic. People are trying to be emotional!

Imagine the nightmare scenario where we can't play Mercyhurst and Stetson and San Diego and instead the competition is closer to Idaho and Montana and any of the Dakotas. Sure, we might lose 2 of our home games every year instead of 1 every four years but we'd also get 60 minutes of engaging football every week.

What teams do you think the Cats would play in non-conference games if they moved up to FBS? Mountain West teams this year scheduled lower level FCS teams in Montana State, Eastern Washington, Idaho, Utah Tech, Sac State, Texas A&M Commerce, Portland State, Northern Colorado, Delaware State, Northern Iowa, Robert Morris, and Merrimack. Certainly not at all a murderers row of competition for them. If the Cats move up, they would schedule at least one lower level FCS program for a non conference game every year, like they do now, probably a comparative FBS G5 program every year or two, like they do in the FCS now, and a money game against a higher level FBS program, just like they do now. I get that the conference schedule may or may not be more competitive, but non conference games wouldn’t be very dissimilar to what we have at the FCS level.

I don't think the Cats will continue to schedule non-scholarship teams or 1st/2nd year FCS teams if they move up, that's for sure. I'd be more than happy if our drop down game was against a team from the BSC (which made up half of the teams you listed). Preferably not UNCU/PSU/CP but any of the others would be fine opponents and more competitive from a MWC perspective than most of our current OOC opponents are from a BSC perspective. We also wouldn't have the SFA's of the world breaking contracts at the last minute if MWC money was involved.

Our OOC MWC schedule would be 1 FCS, 1-2 G5 and 0-1 P4 every year. That's not remotely close to what we do every year now. We currently play one FBS game per year at most. In the last 20 years we've played 2 FBS in a season one time (2008) and in 4 seasons didn't play any FBS teams (12, 15, 18, 23). We've only played 5 G5 teams over that period and one of them was Idaho in their last year there (I believe).

I know you hate the idea of moving up but you're just wrong if you think our OOC competition wouldn't improve.

We shall see.

The OOC competition would have to improve. Give Coach Vigen 22 more scholarship players, and the games we have that are non-competitive now would have to go by the wayside. No more Mercyhurst and Maine vs. a Bobcat FBS team.

[AFCAT]

There is demand for tickets because we have a winning program. People seem to forget how dead the stadium was back in the days of the streak. Now people are lobbying to a return to meaningless football in Bozeman. Attendance will suffer if they get their way.

The '90s aren't coming back and the list of programs that have been able to maintain or increase their level of fan interest and attendance after moving up to FBS is growing longer by the year. It's crazy to me how pessimistic everyone seems to be about MSU being able to compete against a higher level of competition, when they showed in the first game of this season that they absolutely can do it even with the scholarship limitations of being in the FCS right now. And football doesn't all of a sudden become meaningless because there's no national championship to play for. Is the MSU basketball program meaningless because they'll never be able to win the NCAA Tournament? Of course, it seems to be a moot point right now since no invitation appears to be forthcoming any time soon for MSU to move up to the FBS level.

Get out of here with your use of logic. People are trying to be emotional!

Imagine the nightmare scenario where we can't play Mercyhurst and Stetson and San Diego and instead the competition is closer to Idaho and Montana and any of the Dakotas. Sure, we might lose 2 of our home games every year instead of 1 every four years but we'd also get 60 minutes of engaging football every week.

What teams do you think the Cats would play in non-conference games if they moved up to FBS? Mountain West teams this year scheduled lower level FCS teams in Montana State, Eastern Washington, Idaho, Utah Tech, Sac State, Texas A&M Commerce, Portland State, Northern Colorado, Delaware State, Northern Iowa, Robert Morris, and Merrimack. Certainly not at all a murderers row of competition for them. If the Cats move up, they would schedule at least one lower level FCS program for a non conference game every year, like they do now, probably a comparative FBS G5 program every year or two, like they do in the FCS now, and a money game against a higher level FBS program, just like they do now. I get that the conference schedule may or may not be more competitive, but non conference games wouldn’t be very dissimilar to what we have at the FCS level.

I don't think the Cats will continue to schedule non-scholarship teams or 1st/2nd year FCS teams if they move up, that's for sure. I'd be more than happy if our drop down game was against a team from the BSC (which made up half of the teams you listed). Preferably not UNCU/PSU/CP but any of the others would be fine opponents and more competitive from a MWC perspective than most of our current OOC opponents are from a BSC perspective. We also wouldn't have the SFA's of the world breaking contracts at the last minute if MWC money was involved.

Our OOC MWC schedule would be 1 FCS, 1-2 G5 and 0-1 P4 every year. That's not remotely close to what we do every year now. We currently play one FBS game per year at most. In the last 20 years we've played 2 FBS in a season one time (2008) and in 4 seasons didn't play any FBS teams (12, 15, 18, 23). We've only played 5 G5 teams over that period and one of them was Idaho in their last year there (I believe).

I know you hate the idea of moving up but you're just wrong if you think our OOC competition wouldn't improve.

We shall see.

The OOC competition would have to improve. Give Coach Vigen 22 more scholarship players, and the games we have that are non-competitive now would have to go by the wayside. No more Mercyhurst and Maine vs. a Bobcat FBS team.

Oklahoma scheduled Maine this season. Oregon scheduled MSU next season and that wasn’t because they were hoping for a stiff test in competition. I’m sure an FBS MSU would have no problem scheduling Maine or any other lower level FCS program in a non conference game to get an easy win. The MW already does that now.