EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by allcat » Fri Mar 30, 2018 2:30 pm

When you look at ISU, I actually see several logical rivals. Idaho, Weber, UM and MSU. The problem child for this is actually PSU, who gets them? This would be better if they put PSU in with the California triplets.


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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by John K » Mon Apr 02, 2018 8:54 am

I'd like to see them rethink the whole designated rivalries concept. I mean most of them are just sort of contrived anyway, although of course there are a few exceptions to that, i.e MSU-UM, EWU-UI, Sac-UCD, etc. I'd prefer a 2 division format for scheduling only, so that you played all the schools in your own division every year, and then rotate through the teams in the other division. No conference championship game...the team with the best conference record would win the title. The CAA had divisions at one time, even though they didn't have a championship game. MSU, UM, EWU, UI, ISU, WSU in one division and PSU, UCD, SS, CP, NAU, SUU, and UNC in the other division. With a 9 game conference schedule, we'd play 4 of the 7 teams in the other division each year, which means that you could cycle through all of them in 2 years, and never go more than a single year without playing a team. The other division would play 3 of the 6 teams in our division each year, so that again they could play every team over the course of each 2 year cycle. That would keep intact all of the "true" rivalries, and it would reduce travel for most of the schools at least. Having all of the charter members plus EWU in one division would be geographically logical, as well as keeping all of the rivalries intact.



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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by Long Time Cat » Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:21 am

John K wrote:I'd like to see them rethink the whole designated rivalries concept. I mean most of them are just sort of contrived anyway, although of course there are a few exceptions to that, i.e MSU-UM, EWU-UI, Sac-UCD, etc. I'd prefer a 2 division format for scheduling only, so that you played all the schools in your own division every year, and then rotate through the teams in the other division. No conference championship game...the team with the best conference record would win the title. The CAA had divisions at one time, even though they didn't have a championship game. MSU, UM, EWU, UI, ISU, WSU in one division and PSU, UCD, SS, CP, NAU, SUU, and UNC in the other division. With a 9 game conference schedule, we'd play 4 of the 7 teams in the other division each year, which means that you could cycle through all of them in 2 years, and never go more than a single year without playing a team. The other division would play 3 of the 6 teams in our division each year, so that again they could play every team over the course of each 2 year cycle. That would keep intact all of the "true" rivalries, and it would reduce travel for most of the schools at least. Having all of the charter members plus EWU in one division would be geographically logical, as well as keeping all of the rivalries intact.
:thumbup: I like this idea.
It makes the travel schedule much better for the teams and fans in the "charter" division and most of the rest of the schools travel is a mess anyhow. When PSU gives up on football it makes the scheduling even better and then we could have a North and South Division. Would there be a concern that the schools in the charter division might break away at some point?


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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by Rich K » Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:41 am

Long Time Cat wrote:
John K wrote:I'd like to see them rethink the whole designated rivalries concept. I mean most of them are just sort of contrived anyway, although of course there are a few exceptions to that, i.e MSU-UM, EWU-UI, Sac-UCD, etc. I'd prefer a 2 division format for scheduling only, so that you played all the schools in your own division every year, and then rotate through the teams in the other division. No conference championship game...the team with the best conference record would win the title. The CAA had divisions at one time, even though they didn't have a championship game. MSU, UM, EWU, UI, ISU, WSU in one division and PSU, UCD, SS, CP, NAU, SUU, and UNC in the other division. With a 9 game conference schedule, we'd play 4 of the 7 teams in the other division each year, which means that you could cycle through all of them in 2 years, and never go more than a single year without playing a team. The other division would play 3 of the 6 teams in our division each year, so that again they could play every team over the course of each 2 year cycle. That would keep intact all of the "true" rivalries, and it would reduce travel for most of the schools at least. Having all of the charter members plus EWU in one division would be geographically logical, as well as keeping all of the rivalries intact.
:thumbup: I like this idea.
It makes the travel schedule much better for the teams and fans in the "charter" division and most of the rest of the schools travel is a mess anyhow. When PSU gives up on football it makes the scheduling even better and then we could have a North and South Division. Would there be a concern that the schools in the charter division might break away at some point?
I like the idea too. I haven't heard any more rumblings about PSU's football future, anybody heard anything new? PSU's OOC schedule isn't made for success either. They have Oregon and Nevada on the road and College of Idaho at home. <sarc>That ought to draw the fans to the soccer field.....</sarc>


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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by iaafan » Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:48 am

JohnK: have you submitted this idea to the league office? You should.



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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by 91catAlum » Mon Apr 02, 2018 10:20 am

I like the idea of 2 sub-divisions, but the way you have it divided up puts almost all the usual good teams on the same side. Too much chance a weaker team from the other side ends up with 7-8 wins and makes the playoffs with a weak schedule... Or a better team from the charter side misses out.

If you're gonna do the 2 divisions you can't put EWU, Idaho, Weber, and both Montana schools all in the same side, leaving mostly the crap teams on the other side. There's no way the Big Sky decision makers would do that.


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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by Long Time Cat » Mon Apr 02, 2018 1:06 pm

91catAlum wrote:I like the idea of 2 sub-divisions, but the way you have it divided up puts almost all the usual good teams on the same side. Too much chance a weaker team from the other side ends up with 7-8 wins and makes the playoffs with a weak schedule... Or a better team from the charter side misses out.

If you're gonna do the 2 divisions you can't put EWU, Idaho, Weber, and both Montana schools all in the same side, leaving mostly the crap teams on the other side. There's no way the Big Sky decision makers would do that.
I had concerns about that initially but didn't mention it because after thinking about it both SUU and NAU have been pretty good recently and teams from the South division still have to play 3 or 4 teams from the North division. For teams and fans whose goal is a national championship being in the tougher division is what you want. My 2 cents worth is that in the end it still works out OK.


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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by John K » Mon Apr 02, 2018 6:11 pm

91catAlum wrote:I like the idea of 2 sub-divisions, but the way you have it divided up puts almost all the usual good teams on the same side. Too much chance a weaker team from the other side ends up with 7-8 wins and makes the playoffs with a weak schedule... Or a better team from the charter side misses out.

If you're gonna do the 2 divisions you can't put EWU, Idaho, Weber, and both Montana schools all in the same side, leaving mostly the crap teams on the other side. There's no way the Big Sky decision makers would do that.
That's not necessarily true anymore. Both NAU and SUU made the playoffs last season, from what you consider to be the weaker division, while only WSU made it from the so called stronger division. Although historically, the one division has been stronger than the other. But the balance of power has been changing in the BSC in the last few years. It's no longer dominated by MSU, UM, and EWU as it was for many years.



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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by John K » Mon Apr 02, 2018 6:14 pm

iaafan wrote:JohnK: have you submitted this idea to the league office? You should.
No I haven't but maybe I should. And thanks.



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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by John K » Mon Apr 02, 2018 6:24 pm

I"m really curious to see how well UI fares in the BSC this fall. They've been a perennial bottom feeder in the weakest FBS conference in the nation. A conference that may not be any stronger top to bottom than the MVFC. If I had to guess, I'd predict them to be no better than middle of the pack, anywhere from 3-5 to 5-3 in conference play.



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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by John K » Mon Apr 02, 2018 7:02 pm

91catAlum wrote:I like the idea of 2 sub-divisions, but the way you have it divided up puts almost all the usual good teams on the same side. Too much chance a weaker team from the other side ends up with 7-8 wins and makes the playoffs with a weak schedule... Or a better team from the charter side misses out.

If you're gonna do the 2 divisions you can't put EWU, Idaho, Weber, and both Montana schools all in the same side, leaving mostly the crap teams on the other side. There's no way the Big Sky decision makers would do that.
If you wanted to better equalize the competitive balance, you could move UNC to the north division, and have 7 teams in the north and 6 in the south, since they're generally one of the weaker programs. Geographically they probably fit in better with the north anyway.



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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by WSUWILDCAT » Mon Apr 09, 2018 10:58 am

John K wrote:
91catAlum wrote:I like the idea of 2 sub-divisions, but the way you have it divided up puts almost all the usual good teams on the same side. Too much chance a weaker team from the other side ends up with 7-8 wins and makes the playoffs with a weak schedule... Or a better team from the charter side misses out.

If you're gonna do the 2 divisions you can't put EWU, Idaho, Weber, and both Montana schools all in the same side, leaving mostly the crap teams on the other side. There's no way the Big Sky decision makers would do that.
If you wanted to better equalize the competitive balance, you could move UNC to the north division, and have 7 teams in the north and 6 in the south, since they're generally one of the weaker programs. Geographically they probably fit in better with the north anyway.

I always liked the idea of a Pacific/ Mountain Division setup.

Pacific
Davis
Poly
Sac
PSU
EWU
Idaho

Mountain
UM
Mont St
Weber St
Idaho St
UNC
SUU
NAU

Though I'm sure Idaho would not like that setup too much.


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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by MSU01 » Mon Apr 09, 2018 12:53 pm

John K wrote: MSU, UM, EWU, UI, ISU, WSU in one division and PSU, UCD, SS, CP, NAU, SUU, and UNC in the other division. With a 9 game conference schedule, we'd play 4 of the 7 teams in the other division each year, which means that you could cycle through all of them in 2 years, and never go more than a single year without playing a team. The other division would play 3 of the 6 teams in our division each year, so that again they could play every team over the course of each 2 year cycle.
I like the idea of divisions but this specific setup wouldn't work. You can't have the 6-team division playing 4 of 7 teams in the other division but the 7-team division teams playing only 3 teams in the other division. That would be 24 out of division games for the 6-team division but only 21 for the 7-team division. Not sure how it's possible unless you have an equal number of teams in each division, so UND leaving kind of messes up that as a possibility unless someone else gets added.



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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by John K » Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:07 pm

MSU01 wrote:
John K wrote: MSU, UM, EWU, UI, ISU, WSU in one division and PSU, UCD, SS, CP, NAU, SUU, and UNC in the other division. With a 9 game conference schedule, we'd play 4 of the 7 teams in the other division each year, which means that you could cycle through all of them in 2 years, and never go more than a single year without playing a team. The other division would play 3 of the 6 teams in our division each year, so that again they could play every team over the course of each 2 year cycle.
I like the idea of divisions but this specific setup wouldn't work. You can't have the 6-team division playing 4 of 7 teams in the other division but the 7-team division teams playing only 3 teams in the other division. That would be 24 out of division games for the 6-team division but only 21 for the 7-team division. Not sure how it's possible unless you have an equal number of teams in each division, so UND leaving kind of messes up that as a possibility unless someone else gets added.
So what? I don't really see why that would be any huge problem? Some FBS conferences (ACC is one) have an odd number of teams, and therefore they don't have the same number of teams in each division.



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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by MSU01 » Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:40 pm

John K wrote:
MSU01 wrote:
John K wrote: MSU, UM, EWU, UI, ISU, WSU in one division and PSU, UCD, SS, CP, NAU, SUU, and UNC in the other division. With a 9 game conference schedule, we'd play 4 of the 7 teams in the other division each year, which means that you could cycle through all of them in 2 years, and never go more than a single year without playing a team. The other division would play 3 of the 6 teams in our division each year, so that again they could play every team over the course of each 2 year cycle.
I like the idea of divisions but this specific setup wouldn't work. You can't have the 6-team division playing 4 of 7 teams in the other division but the 7-team division teams playing only 3 teams in the other division. That would be 24 out of division games for the 6-team division but only 21 for the 7-team division. Not sure how it's possible unless you have an equal number of teams in each division, so UND leaving kind of messes up that as a possibility unless someone else gets added.
So what? I don't really see why that would be any huge problem? Some FBS conferences (ACC is one) have an odd number of teams, and therefore they don't have the same number of teams in each division.
It's a problem because 24 doesn't equal 21, so the 6-team division needs three more games than the 7-team division has available to play. All of the FBS conferences with divisions, including the ACC, have an even number of teams and equally sized divisions.



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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by Long Time Cat » Tue Apr 10, 2018 8:24 am

MSU01 wrote:
John K wrote:
MSU01 wrote:
John K wrote: MSU, UM, EWU, UI, ISU, WSU in one division and PSU, UCD, SS, CP, NAU, SUU, and UNC in the other division. With a 9 game conference schedule, we'd play 4 of the 7 teams in the other division each year, which means that you could cycle through all of them in 2 years, and never go more than a single year without playing a team. The other division would play 3 of the 6 teams in our division each year, so that again they could play every team over the course of each 2 year cycle.
I like the idea of divisions but this specific setup wouldn't work. You can't have the 6-team division playing 4 of 7 teams in the other division but the 7-team division teams playing only 3 teams in the other division. That would be 24 out of division games for the 6-team division but only 21 for the 7-team division. Not sure how it's possible unless you have an equal number of teams in each division, so UND leaving kind of messes up that as a possibility unless someone else gets added.
So what? I don't really see why that would be any huge problem? Some FBS conferences (ACC is one) have an odd number of teams, and therefore they don't have the same number of teams in each division.
It's a problem because 24 doesn't equal 21, so the 6-team division needs three more games than the 7-team division has available to play. All of the FBS conferences with divisions, including the ACC, have an even number of teams and equally sized divisions.
It will work out great once PSU gives up on football. Which I'm GUESSING isn't too far off.

North
MSU
EWU
UI
WSU
ISU
UM

South
SUU
NAU
UNC
CPSLO
SSU
UCD

Living in northern Idaho and being a Cat fan I much prefer a north/south alignment.


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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by 91catAlum » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:00 am

What would be the average attendance at a South division game? 3500? I don't see it.


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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by Montanabob » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:40 am

91catAlum wrote:What would be the average attendance at a South division game? 3500? I don't see it.

only if they scheduled MSU or UM that year.

UM - 141,212 total 23,535 avg
MSU - 111,702. 18,617.
*Idaho - 63,197. 10,533.
SUU - 57,231. 9,539
Weber - 52,794. 8,799.
UND - 52,139. 10,428.
EWU - 50,617. 10,123.
SSU - 49,891. 8,315.
NAU - 45,996. 6,571.
UCD - 41,472. 8,294.
CPoly - 37,600. 7,520.
ISU - 31,483. 6,297.
UNC - 21,917. 4,383.
PSU - 20,678. 4,136.

Big Sky Avg. per game: 9,927 (+208 over 2016)
3rd highest FCS Conference avg.


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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by John K » Tue Apr 10, 2018 12:05 pm

MSU01 wrote:
John K wrote:
MSU01 wrote:
John K wrote: MSU, UM, EWU, UI, ISU, WSU in one division and PSU, UCD, SS, CP, NAU, SUU, and UNC in the other division. With a 9 game conference schedule, we'd play 4 of the 7 teams in the other division each year, which means that you could cycle through all of them in 2 years, and never go more than a single year without playing a team. The other division would play 3 of the 6 teams in our division each year, so that again they could play every team over the course of each 2 year cycle.
I like the idea of divisions but this specific setup wouldn't work. You can't have the 6-team division playing 4 of 7 teams in the other division but the 7-team division teams playing only 3 teams in the other division. That would be 24 out of division games for the 6-team division but only 21 for the 7-team division. Not sure how it's possible unless you have an equal number of teams in each division, so UND leaving kind of messes up that as a possibility unless someone else gets added.
So what? I don't really see why that would be any huge problem? Some FBS conferences (ACC is one) have an odd number of teams, and therefore they don't have the same number of teams in each division.
It's a problem because 24 doesn't equal 21, so the 6-team division needs three more games than the 7-team division has available to play. All of the FBS conferences with divisions, including the ACC, have an even number of teams and equally sized divisions.
I see what you mean now. And I got confused about the ACC because they have 15 teams for basketball (and most other sports presumably), but of course Notre Dame is not actually an official member for football, even though I believe they're required to schedule at least 7 games against ACC teams. Thanks for catching that.



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Re: EWU Home Schedule Worst in Big Sky History?

Post by Montanabob » Tue Apr 10, 2018 1:37 pm

I actually hate PSU's schedule more than EWU.
3-8 maybe 4-7 if they beat Nevada.

2018 PORTLAND STATE FOOTBALL SCHEDULE
L Aug. 31, at Nevada
L Sept. 8, at Oregon
W Sept. 15, College of Idaho
L Sept. 22, Montana State*
L Sept. 29, at Idaho*
W Oct. 6, at Montana*
L Oct. 13, Northern Colorado*
Oct. 20, bye
L Oct. 27, at Sacramento State*
W Nov. 3, Idaho State*
L Nov. 10, at North Dakota*
L Nov. 17, Eastern Washington*

* Big Sky Conference game


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