Idaho is Rejoining the Big Sky

The Butcher · Post by **The Butcher** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 8:47 am

Just heard from a very reliable source that Idaho is coming back to the Big Sky. Nothing is signed, but Fulleton has worked with Idaho on an initial agreement.

allcat · Post by **allcat** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 9:15 am

Then I would like to see NOrth South split
North
MSU
um
Eastern
Idaho
Portland
UNCU
UND

South
Weber
ISU
SU
NA
Cal Poly
Davis
Sac

LTown Cat · Post by **LTown Cat** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 9:30 am

allcat wrote:Then I would like to see NOrth South split
North
MSU
um
Eastern
Idaho
Portland
UNCU
UND

South
Weber
ISU
SU
NA
Cal Poly
Davis
Sac

Geographically that would be great. Competitively the South has a very unfair advantage, at least based on the past 10-15 yrs.

allcat · Post by **allcat** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 9:38 am

Yea, I was trying to keep games with Eastern. The other split would probably be
MSU
um
UND
UNCU
ISU
Weber
Either SU or NA

Protland
Eastern
Idaho
Poly
Davis
Sac
SU or NA

John K · Post by **John K** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:05 am

I would assume that this is for all sports except football. I don't think they'll make any decisions about football, until the end of this season at the earliest, and probably not even that soon. I think they're committed to playing as an indy in I-A in 2013-14, and will only come back to the BSC after that, if no I-A conference will take them. And I'll go ahead and predict right now, that things will play out exactly that way. I think their program will be even less attractive to any I-A conferences after the indy experiment fails miserably, and they will be forced back to the BSC at that time, kicking and screaming. The only thing that might change that scenario, is if they are unable to put together a full 12-game indy schedule in either of the next seasons, which is a very real possibility.

The Butcher · Post by **The Butcher** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:37 am

John K wrote:I would assume that this is for all sports except football. I don't think they'll make any decisions about football, until the end of this season at the earliest, and probably not even that soon. I think they're committed to playing as an indy in I-A in 2013-14, and will only come back to the BSC after that, if no I-A conference will take them. And I'll go ahead and predict right now, that things will play out exactly that way. I think their program will be even less attractive to any I-A conferences after the indy experiment fails miserably, and they will be forced back to the BSC at that time, kicking and screaming. The only thing that might change that scenario, is if they are unable to put together a full 12-game indy schedule in either of the next seasons, which is a very real possibility.

As soon as I got off the phone I was kicking myself. I didn't ask specifically about football, and started thinking that might be one of the issues they are working out.

I would be really curious what my transpire if Idaho doesn’t win a game this season. And honestly, who would be willing to go to Idaho? I don’t see anyone outside of 1-AA playing there, hell 1-AAs probably won’t go there because Idaho won’t pony up the type of money other 1-As would.

allcat · Post by **allcat** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:45 am

I keep forgetting that there are other sports. I thought they had already rejoined for those others.

allcat · Post by **allcat** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:48 am

this is from Sept 12 so I would suspect tht this is still valid http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2012/0 ... ber_201415" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

John K · Post by **John K** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 11:13 am

The Butcher wrote:
John K wrote:I would assume that this is for all sports except football. I don't think they'll make any decisions about football, until the end of this season at the earliest, and probably not even that soon. I think they're committed to playing as an indy in I-A in 2013-14, and will only come back to the BSC after that, if no I-A conference will take them. And I'll go ahead and predict right now, that things will play out exactly that way. I think their program will be even less attractive to any I-A conferences after the indy experiment fails miserably, and they will be forced back to the BSC at that time, kicking and screaming. The only thing that might change that scenario, is if they are unable to put together a full 12-game indy schedule in either of the next seasons, which is a very real possibility.
As soon as I got off the phone I was kicking myself. I didn't ask specifically about football, and started thinking that might be one of the issues they are working out.

I would be really curious what my transpire if Idaho doesn’t win a game this season. And honestly, who would be willing to go to Idaho? I don’t see anyone outside of 1-AA playing there, hell 1-AAs probably won’t go there because Idaho won’t pony up the type of money other 1-As would.

It sounds like they're really having issues with putting together a schedule for next season. They need to have a minimum of 5 home games, and 4 of them have to be against I-A teams. They're playing NMSU twice next year, home and away, but they currently have only 2 other games scheduled. Scheduling 3 non-conference games can sometimes be very challenging for MSU, so imagine how difficult it must be having to schedule 12 non-conference games. And in the middle of the season, when every team in the nation is knee deep into their conference schedule, it would seem to be virtually impossible to find opponents, even for road games, let alone trying to convince teams to come to Moscow. I think playing as an indy for 2 years will come close to killing a program that is already on life support. They'd be better off if they swallowed their pride and came back to the BSC right now, because they won't gain anything by playing as an indy for a couple of seasons. But they're too delusional to understand that, and they'll keep clinging to the hope that they can stay in I-A for as long as possible, even if that path leads their program to it's grave.

Post by **kmax** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 11:47 am

The Butcher wrote:As soon as I got off the phone I was kicking myself. I didn't ask specifically about football, and started thinking that might be one of the issues they are working out. .

Posting this thread and then saying that definitely deserves a

The Butcher · Post by **The Butcher** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 1:02 pm

kmax wrote:
The Butcher wrote:As soon as I got off the phone I was kicking myself. I didn't ask specifically about football, and started thinking that might be one of the issues they are working out. .
Posting this thread and then saying that definitely deserves a

Trust me,I know. And of course he is one of those guys that calls you, you don't call him...

BelgradeBobcat · Post by **BelgradeBobcat** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 6:23 pm

I'm guessing there will quite a bit of lag between the deal and the actual annoucement as the Idaho administration tries to figure out how to break the news to their boosters. I don't envy that AD and President.

John K · Post by **John K** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 6:34 pm

BelgradeBobcat wrote:I'm guessing there will quite a bit of lag between the deal and the actual annoucement as the Idaho administration tries to figure out how to break the news to their boosters. I don't envy that AD and President.

I don't think their alumni and boosters are all that opposed to joining the BSC for all other sports. They just don't want to come back for football, since that would obviously mean having to drop back down to I-AA.

BelgradeBobcat · Post by **BelgradeBobcat** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 7:39 pm

John K wrote:
BelgradeBobcat wrote:I'm guessing there will quite a bit of lag between the deal and the actual annoucement as the Idaho administration tries to figure out how to break the news to their boosters. I don't envy that AD and President.
I don't think their alumni and boosters are all that opposed to joining the BSC for all other sports. They just don't want to come back for football, since that would obviously mean having to drop back down to I-AA.

I think some of the more recent quotes from Fullerton indicate that they are close to signing on for football too. Could be totally wrong on that though.

MSUcantouchus · Post by **MSUcantouchus** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 11:05 pm

The other sports are already in. That's old news I believe.

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John K · Post by **John K** » Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:01 am

MSUcantouchus wrote:The other sports are already in. That's old news I believe.

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I think all that's been officially announced is that the BSC has extended a formal invitation to UI to join the conference for all sports except football, and the Idaho Board of Education (or whatever they call their version of the Board of Regents) has given them permission to do so. At the same time, they also gave UI permission to play as an independent in football for the 2013-2014 seasons. However, I'm not sure that UI has ever formally announced that they have accepted the BSC invitation.

John K · Post by **John K** » Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:04 am

I should add that I'm sure the BSC's invitation included football as well, but the key point in the announcement was the BSC saying that they'd be willing to take UI for other sports, even if they chose not to join in football.