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[Bleedinbluengold]

when was the last time the cats had four winning seasons in a row. i think if you did a little research you would see it's been a long time. how long has it been that we've been consitantly competitve? how long has it been since we've averaged over 12000 fans for several seasons in a row? i think everyone is suffering from griz envy. we didn't have a don read, so the program has to start somewhere. the ad made a mistake with lubick, with solomonson, etc. what you have now is consistancy. you can slam the program all you want with the "yah, consistantly losers" garbage. i still remember the days of sitting in dornblaser with 1000 people watching the griz get spanked by portland state. you seem to forget that the griz only became powers after the big three left(idaho,reno,boise). at this point i'd rather have consistancy than hysells up and down seasons. at least were not trying to get out of the cellar, we're almost at the top, trying to get over that hump. The griz program is a power, but their program is still not perfect,i.e. never won a road playoff game(not counting championship games). cheer up, it's still only a football game.

1. long time, yup
2. long time, again
3. never averaged 12K
4. i blame parac (for firing Lubs), and my folks actually liked him. but, i blame fullerton, too. he was a complete idiot as MSU AD.

[BelgradeBobcat]

Other than LSU, Ohio State, and to a much lesser extent Florida State & Virginia Tech., what other "Aggie" schools consistently beat their in-state rival.

I can't remember if it was ESPN or Sports Illustrated that conducted a study as to why "Aggie" schools can't consistently beat their in-state university rivals. They concluded that: 1.) Aggie schools are more math & science oriented therefore less appealing academically for the average football player. 2.) Most Aggie schools are in rural settings as compared to the in-state Liberal Arts university. Nightlife/entertainment is an important drawing for recruits. 3.) Aggie grads tend to give less $$$$$ back to their universities.

Maybe MSU being away from most of Montana's population as compare to UM coupled with the above conclusions is part of our systemic losing culture. Who knows??

It's a little different in many states. Indiana State is not on the same level as Indiana-their big engineering school is Purdue. In Alabama the cow college is Auburn. In other states the land grant school is the U of... such as Florida, Idaho, and Wyoming. In Texas, TSU is really SW Texas State-the cow college engineering school is Texas A&M.

Another thought...the University of Montana and Montana State were not at the same level of football nor even in the same conference for most of the 20th Century. There was a huge competitive disparity in the 20's and 30's as the griz were trying to compete in what is now the Pac-10 and Montana State College as it was known was probably more at what is now the NAIA level. If you look at the two school's history while both have been at the same level and in the Big Sky Conference (since the early '60's) you'll see the record between the two is surprisingly even-even with the griz's 16 game streak.

By the way-Montana State is the reigning Big Sky Conference all sports award winner-hardly a result of systemic losing culture. As a whole, our teams are doing pretty well athletically. It's just that football dominates the scene in a lot of hearts and minds-probably wrongly so.

[SonomaCat]

Penn State does okay, too.