Big Sky Conference-growth issues

BismarckBison · Post by **BismarckBison** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:17 am

I am pulling for 12 teams.
I am pulling for 12 teams.
To self: repeat the above

CatFamily · Post by **CatFamily** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:22 am

I am with El Gato and the 12 team 2 divsion conference. After reading a lot of threads about this on BobcatNation I am beginning to understand the complexities of the expansion issue. However, in Fullerton's comments to the press in the papers today it appears he sees the benefits of NDSU becoming a BSC member and I am thinking he would like to see a 12 team conference. Now... will the presidents agree to look at this!?

BelgradeBobcat · Post by **BelgradeBobcat** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 12:43 pm

I've posted over on the Bison Board my theory that if the Big Sky adds one more team to get to 10 it will be NDSU. If they decide to go to 12 teams it will be NDSU, South Dakota State, and the U of North Dakota. Things have been pretty quiet at North Dakota-other than their nickname controversey, but I've gotta believe they're looking seriously at D-1 given the success that NDSU is having.

I really don't think any other schools are viable candidates.

bisonguy · Post by **bisonguy** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 2:35 pm

WYOBISONMAN wrote:I think NDSU in the Sky is the most benificial for both the Big Sky and NDSU. However, after being shunned multiple times I am not sure that NDSU will put an application in on this one....

LOL. Taylor will have the application filled out within 15 minutes of receiving it in the mail.

WYOBISONMAN · Post by **WYOBISONMAN** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 4:22 pm

bisonguy wrote:
WYOBISONMAN wrote:I think NDSU in the Sky is the most benificial for both the Big Sky and NDSU. However, after being shunned multiple times I am not sure that NDSU will put an application in on this one....
LOL. Taylor will have the application filled out within 15 minutes of receiving it in the mail.

Sh!t BG.....we need to play hard to get......

If we play hard to get, we may actually get laid out of this deal......

89rabbit · Post by **89rabbit** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 10:13 am

Here is a link to an interview with Doug Fullerton on this topic. Nothing really new but interesting none the less. It is about 5 1/2 min. long.

http://www.bigskyconf.com/stats/Audio/2005/commish.wma

WYOBISONMAN · Post by **WYOBISONMAN** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 8:08 am

89rabbit wrote:Here is a link to an interview with Doug Fullerton on this topic. Nothing really new but interesting none the less. It is about 5 1/2 min. long.

http://www.bigskyconf.com/stats/Audio/2005/commish.wma

Unfortunately in that interview I think Fullerton was pretty anti-Dakota. For some reason he does not want us in the Big Sky.

grizzh8r · Post by **grizzh8r** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:24 am

Fullerton you are a fool.

gtapp · Post by **gtapp** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 3:11 pm

If the BSC went to a 12 team format, how would the playoff game between the two division winners be handled? The 1-AA playoff's start the week after the last game so the BSC conference would have to finish play the week before. That would require one less game for wach BSC team.

Post by **kmax** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 3:14 pm

I doubt you would ever get a conference championship game due to the playoffs. The autobid would be decided in much the same way that the A10(12) decides theirs, based upon conference record and tiebreakers.

BisonBacker · Post by **BisonBacker** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:08 pm

Und would have already made the move if they could, financially the school and the community don't have the support needed to fund the move. I would hope that if the BSC does look at expansion it would include both NDSU and SDSU. There was a post on the Bison board regarding just looking at NDSU. I know that everyone is just speculating but I hope Fullerton doesn't hold it against NDSU and SDSU that they are not playoff eligible until 2008, that's not that far off.

jagur1 · Post by **jagur1** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:18 pm

Anyone know the purpose of the Playoff eligible rule? Why waist the time of a school that is willing to spend the money and time to move up?

BelgradeBobcat · Post by **BelgradeBobcat** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:37 pm

BisonBacker wrote:Und would have already made the move if they could, financially the school and the community don't have the support needed to fund the move.

UND may just be happy in D-2 and that's fine. But given their fan support (average attendance), facilities, and Englestad money I'd be surprised if they think they can't afford the move. Maybe they can't afford not to. People in Grand Forks are going to get bored watching them whoop up on UM-Crookston and Winona State while former rivals NDSU, SDSU, and Northern Colorado are playing much better competition.

There are an awful lot of I-AA schools (probably a majority), including some in the Big Sky, that would kill to have the financial support, facilities, and fan support that UND has.

BelgradeBobcat · Post by **BelgradeBobcat** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 10:01 pm

I got the following on the Bison media blog http://www.areavoices.com/bisonmedia/

It's a comment from Fargo TV guy Steve Hallstrom:

Big Sky Conference presidents meet Wednesday in their annual fall meeting. Will expansion come up again? Probably, since the Montana State pres. seems to be very interested in the subject, and the commissioner seems to as well. If it does come up (we're told expansion is not on the agenda), chances are it gets just a few minutes, but that's all that NDSU needs.

If expansion comes up, it will likely go along the road of 12 teams, 2 divisions, according to the commish. No one's going to vote for adding anyone this week, but sometimes all you need is to plant a seed and get people thinking about the subject, and how it might work, over the next few months. These things usually evolve gradually, and that's all NDSU can hope for. That the commissioner is pushing for 12 teams, and I think safe to say pushing for NDSU, completely changes this discussion for me. If you've got 2 presidents (which Fullerton says), and an AD that hold NDSU in high regard, you've got enough to start some momentum.

I've said before I think NDSU will be a part of the conference sooner or later. Is that 2 years or 15? I wish I knew.

BisonBacker · Post by **BisonBacker** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 5:47 am

Given that the financial backer who's money was involved with getting the facilities they have is now deceased I think that source is pretty much history and also with the battles they are fighting (and wasting ND taxpayer dollars IMHO) as well as the problems they have with the president of the univeristy not showing any kind of leadership I really don't think the facilities has much to do with it. Not sure if you got a chance to read the letter their pres emailed to alot of the alum but it ended up being posted on the Fargo Forum's website. Really was an eye opener as to just how contentious their pres is towards NDSU being able to move up. In it he so much as said he had no idea how they could afford to do it. I think they have very poor leadership for one and I do believe if they were going to make the move or if they could afford to make the move they would have already done so. I also agree with you completely on the notion that beating up small DII (used to be DIII in many cases) schools has to get boring but they seem to be content to do just that.

Gamehunter · Post by **Gamehunter** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 11:26 am

BelgradeBobcat wrote:
BisonBacker wrote:Und would have already made the move if they could, financially the school and the community don't have the support needed to fund the move.
UND may just be happy in D-2 and that's fine. But given their fan support (average attendance), facilities, and Englestad money I'd be surprised if they think they can't afford the move. Maybe they can't afford not to. People in Grand Forks are going to get bored watching them whoop up on UM-Crookston and Winona State while former rivals NDSU, SDSU, and Northern Colorado are playing much better competition.

There are an awful lot of I-AA schools (probably a majority), including some in the Big Sky, that would kill to have the financial support, facilities, and fan support that UND has.

They probably have the best facilities, fan support, and revenue for the football team in DII, but the other sports suffer as a result. And their D1 hockey program takes a commanding lead in front of ANY othe sport at UND. Most UND fans want nothing to do with the move if it has any negative effect on their hockey program whatsoever. Which makes sense considering it would be a shame to let their hockey program slip in order to move up all sports. Who can say they play in a $100MM palace of an arena? Might as well put all useable dollars into that sport and worry about the others on a yearly basis.

PeteX · Post by **PeteX** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:39 pm

kmax wrote:
BelgradeBobcat wrote:It could just mean that even more people won't care about UNC athletics and that's it.
While I hope I am wrong, I am going to have to go with this theory. The problem for UNC is going to be the same as seen for PSU, Sac St., etc. They are commuter colleges that are small fish in a big pond. .

What is your definition of a commuter school? UNC has approximately 4500 kids living in on campus dormitories and only about 10% of the undergrad enrollment is from Greeley. Another 10% are out of state students and the remaining 80% are from mostly the Denver and Colorado Springs area.

Hardly commuters I would say.

PeteX · Post by **PeteX** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:48 pm

kmax wrote:
BelgradeBobcat wrote:It could just mean that even more people won't care about UNC athletics and that's it.
Growth in Greely probably isn't going to do much, because growth means outsiders moving in...outsiders who likely have never heard of UNC and could care less.

As the population grows, the university grows... this seems somewhat logical right? As the university grows the fan base grows.

If someone moves from out of state, sure, they won't become fans overnight. But as they become more entrenched in the community and even have children that attend the university those children and families will grow to become supports.

Decisions on who to add and who not to add to the conference aren't based on 2004 attendance and population figures. You have to project where these institutions will be 20 years down the road.

A high growth rate is just indicative of an area that has potential. Will it pan out? Only time will tell. But if I was in the "conference" business I would feel more comfortable expanding my business to a community that was growing. That doesn't guarantee success, but it's an indication that something in the community is working because obviously people want to be there.

BelgradeBobcat · Post by **BelgradeBobcat** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:48 pm

PeteX wrote:
kmax wrote:
BelgradeBobcat wrote:It could just mean that even more people won't care about UNC athletics and that's it.
While I hope I am wrong, I am going to have to go with this theory. The problem for UNC is going to be the same as seen for PSU, Sac St., etc. They are commuter colleges that are small fish in a big pond. .
What is your definition of a commuter school? UNC has approximately 4500 kids living in on campus dormitories and only about 10% of the undergrad enrollment is from Greeley. Another 10% are out of state students and the remaining 80% are from mostly the Denver and Colorado Springs area.

Hardly commuters I would say.

I was encouraged to read that UNC had a record crowd for their game against Cal Poly-almost 10K. I'll take that as a good sign-also, Eastern Washington could only get a crowd that size when over half in attendance were for another team (griz) so maybe my comparison of EWU to UNC was not completely accurate.

I've never been opposed to UNC in the league, but I've have been opposed to not adding the Dakota schools as well.

PeteX · Post by **PeteX** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:51 pm

mquast53000 wrote:I really think that with the addition of UNC we have weakened the Big Sky. I just don’t see UNC becoming competitive in any sports. Only time will tell, but I have the feeling that we have just added another Sac State type of school. The Big Sky Conference missed a great opportunity to add the Dakota schools.

They were competetive in 2003 when they came into our backyard and beat us!

Big Sky Conference-growth issues

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