Idaho, FCS/FBS, and the Big Sky

[ddlalum]

An interview by Doug Fullerton.
Talks about multi-tiered Big Sky, FCS/FBS, and the University of Idaho

http://www.ktik.com/wp-content/uploads/ ... -1-web.mp3
http://www.ktik.com/wp-content/uploads/ ... -2-web.mp3

[Grizlaw]

Interesting.

On the one hand, he's saying that he doesn't think any kind of move to FBS is imminent. But at the same time, it's pretty clear that he's spent a lot of time thinking through the details and process for how such a move would be made, if we were to do it. I wonder if he's anticipating another wave of conference realignment that he's not sharing yet?

[BelgradeBobcat]

Very interesting stuff. I think there's a certain group of schools in this region that are just kinda waiting and seeing and working hard to position themselves so they don't get left behind. When Appy State and Georgia Southern left it hurt FCS, but they're far away, but if somebody in the region goes it'll set off a chain reaction. I think Montana State, Montana, North Dakota, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, UC Davis, and maybe a few others are just a little antsy.

[Grizlaw]

Very interesting stuff. I think there's a certain group of schools in this region that are just kinda waiting and seeing and working hard to position themselves so they don't get left behind. When Appy State and Georgia Southern left it hurt FCS, but they're far away, but if somebody in the region goes it'll set off a chain reaction. I think Montana State, Montana, North Dakota, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, UC Davis, and maybe a few others are just a little antsy.

Agreed. What I took away from this interview, though, is that the "thinking" about them possibility of a move is a little more advanced than I thought.

[BelgradeBobcat]

Another interesting comment-he's concerned about the league getting too big. 14 teams fighting for one automatic bid. I assume he's talking here about sports other than football? Could there ever be a merger with the WAC-who could use a few more teams for stability? That may be a little far fetched, but who knows?

[Montanabob]

Another interesting comment-he's concerned about the league getting too big. 14 teams fighting for one automatic bid. I assume he's talking here about sports other than football? Could there ever be a merger with the WAC-who could use a few more teams for stability? That may be a little far fetched, but who knows?

Holy crap. Merger with the WAC? As Ron White would say "here's your sign.". Talk about a stupid plan to move up to FBS. Not a single football team in the group and you propose merging with that worthless conference. Are you from Belgrade or inbreed from North Dakota?

[allcat]

Another interesting comment-he's concerned about the league getting too big. 14 teams fighting for one automatic bid. I assume he's talking here about sports other than football? Could there ever be a merger with the WAC-who could use a few more teams for stability? That may be a little far fetched, but who knows?

Holy crap. Merger with the WAC? As Ron White would say "here's your sign.". Talk about a stupid plan to move up to FBS. Not a single football team in the group and you propose merging with that worthless conference. Are you from Belgrade or inbreed from North Dakota?

Because he throws things out there, after having said they are just ideas to essentially be played with, you just decide it's a stupid idea? Sometimes there are more than one way to skin a cat. I like that they want to think about many scenarios. You certainly did not get every possibility in such an interview.

[LongTimeCatFan]

Another interesting comment-he's concerned about the league getting too big. 14 teams fighting for one automatic bid. I assume he's talking here about sports other than football? Could there ever be a merger with the WAC-who could use a few more teams for stability? That may be a little far fetched, but who knows?

Holy crap. Merger with the WAC? As Ron White would say "here's your sign.". Talk about a stupid plan to move up to FBS. Not a single football team in the group and you propose merging with that worthless conference. Are you from Belgrade or inbreed from North Dakota?

Bill Engvall, not Ron White

[wbtfg]

Another interesting comment-he's concerned about the league getting too big. 14 teams fighting for one automatic bid. I assume he's talking here about sports other than football? Could there ever be a merger with the WAC-who could use a few more teams for stability? That may be a little far fetched, but who knows?

Holy crap. Merger with the WAC? As Ron White would say "here's your sign.". Talk about a stupid plan to move up to FBS. Not a single football team in the group and you propose merging with that worthless conference. Are you from Belgrade or inbreed from North Dakota?

Bill Engvall, not Ron White

Will Holdens FIL

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

[LongTimeCatFan]

Another interesting comment-he's concerned about the league getting too big. 14 teams fighting for one automatic bid. I assume he's talking here about sports other than football? Could there ever be a merger with the WAC-who could use a few more teams for stability? That may be a little far fetched, but who knows?

Holy crap. Merger with the WAC? As Ron White would say "here's your sign.". Talk about a stupid plan to move up to FBS. Not a single football team in the group and you propose merging with that worthless conference. Are you from Belgrade or inbreed from North Dakota?

Bill Engvall, not Ron White

Will Holdens FIL

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

Did he marry her? That's got to be fun.

[BelgradeBobcat]

Holy crap. Merger with the WAC? As Ron White would say "here's your sign.". Talk about a stupid plan to move up to FBS. Not a single football team in the group and you propose merging with that worthless conference. Are you from Belgrade or inbreed from North Dakota?

Have you followed conference realignment lately? Being from Idaho I would guess you have. We have Idaho and New Mexico State in the Sun Belt, Syracuse in the ACC, Utah in the Pac-12, Creighton and Butler in the Big East, BYU in the WCC, etc. Boise State was a whisker away from being in the Big East for crying-out-loud. When it comes to conference realignment-crazy is a good place to start.

If a group of Big Sky schools, along with a few others like the Dakotas and New Mexico State (who is the only current WAC school that has a football team) form an FBS conference they're going to need an automatic bid for their other sports. If the some of the schools who play most of their sports in the Summit League (the Dakotas) join with some of the Big Sky schools for FBS football the Summit will need some new teams-those teams will likely have to come from the WAC. So the WAC, which has an automatic bid that is worth its weight in gold, will need new members-thus the Big Sky schools who won't be playing FBS football might go there.

The WAC is an unholy marriage of convenience between a group of schools who don't have much in common-but the WAC still has the automatic bid to the NCAA tournaments. In a one-bid league like the Big Sky, it doesn't make any since to have 14-or 15 teams when another league in in virtually the same footprint doesn't have enough teams.

[Hawks86]

I think the time frame expired, but even though the WAC dropped football, they still had FBS status. If the two had merged it would have given the schools that wanted to move up an easy access to a FBS conference.

[John K]

I guess I interpreted Fullerton's comments a bit differently than everyone else. In terms of the BSC moving up to FBS for football, it seemed to me he was saying that will only happen, if there's eventually some sort of formal split between the Power 5 and the 5 lower tier FBS conferences. I think almost everyone believes that will happen eventually, but I also think it's far from being imminent. It seemed to me like he spent quite a bit of time emphasizing the advantages of staying at the FCS level, primarily from the cost perspective. It also seemed like the BSC has already developed sort of a tentative plan for reabsorbing Idaho for football, as he talked about the processes involved for getting them down to 63 scholarships, and maybe playing sort of a non-conference schedule against BSC teams their first season, if they couldn't get down to the lower schollie limit right away. I have a hunch there's been quite a bit of behind the scenes discussion between Idaho and the BSC, about them coming back for football, and that it's closer to becoming a reality than any of us would have thought. At one time, I didn't think there was any chance of that happening, but it appears that they don't really have any other options, except for dropping football entirely.

[Montanabob]

Holy crap. Merger with the WAC? As Ron White would say "here's your sign.". Talk about a stupid plan to move up to FBS. Not a single football team in the group and you propose merging with that worthless conference. Are you from Belgrade or inbreed from North Dakota?

Have you followed conference realignment lately? Being from Idaho I would guess you have. We have Idaho and New Mexico State in the Sun Belt, Syracuse in the ACC, Utah in the Pac-12, Creighton and Butler in the Big East, BYU in the WCC, etc. Boise State was a whisker away from being in the Big East for crying-out-loud. When it comes to conference realignment-crazy is a good place to start.

If a group of Big Sky schools, along with a few others like the Dakotas and New Mexico State (who is the only current WAC school that has a football team) form an FBS conference they're going to need an automatic bid for their other sports. If the some of the schools who play most of their sports in the Summit League (the Dakotas) join with some of the Big Sky schools for FBS football the Summit will need some new teams-those teams will likely have to come from the WAC. So the WAC, which has an automatic bid that is worth its weight in gold, will need new members-thus the Big Sky schools who won't be playing FBS football might go there.

The WAC is an unholy marriage of convenience between a group of schools who don't have much in common-but the WAC still has the automatic bid to the NCAA tournaments. In a one-bid league like the Big Sky, it doesn't make any since to have 14-or 15 teams when another league in in virtually the same footprint doesn't have enough teams.

You really are clueless. I follow the realignment and know that Idaho will be relegated to FCS in 2017. But the truth is the WAC is worthless and trivial now or in the future. Take you sign and leave the forum. The more likely is what others are saying that part of top FCS and Lower FBS split into new league, 1A 1/2 as a bastardized merger. And that is about 5 years or more away. And if you follow the other forum topic on Idaho, you should know that until someone steps up at several BSC schools and kicks in $10m extra a year for sports, we will never move up to FBS.

[Hawks86]

You really are clueless. I follow the realignment and know that Idaho will be relegated to FCS in 2017. But the truth is the WAC is worthless and trivial now or in the future. Take you sign and leave the forum. The more likely is what others are saying that part of top FCS and Lower FBS split into new league, 1A 1/2 as a bastardized merger. And that is about 5 years or more away. And if you follow the other forum topic on Idaho, you should know that until someone steps up at several BSC schools and kicks in $10m extra a year for sports, we will never move up to FBS.

Are you aka montanafan?

[BelgradeBobcat]

You really are clueless. I follow the realignment and know that Idaho will be relegated to FCS in 2017. But the truth is the WAC is worthless and trivial now or in the future. Take you sign and leave the forum. The more likely is what others are saying that part of top FCS and Lower FBS split into new league, 1A 1/2 as a bastardized merger. And that is about 5 years or more away. And if you follow the other forum topic on Idaho, you should know that until someone steps up at several BSC schools and kicks in $10m extra a year for sports, we will never move up to FBS.

I must have really touched a nerve. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to offend. It's true that I am clueless. I would guess the only people who are not clueless in this situation are the university presidents, athletic directors, and conference commissioners. Sorry but I'm not going to leave the forum because you want me to. Can't help you there.

So what do you think will happen to New Mexico State football if the Sun Belt kicks them out? Seems like they're in a really tough spot without even the Big Sky as a landing spot. Why have the Mountain West schools given them the cold shoulder over the years?

[John K]

You really are clueless. I follow the realignment and know that Idaho will be relegated to FCS in 2017. But the truth is the WAC is worthless and trivial now or in the future. Take you sign and leave the forum. The more likely is what others are saying that part of top FCS and Lower FBS split into new league, 1A 1/2 as a bastardized merger. And that is about 5 years or more away. And if you follow the other forum topic on Idaho, you should know that until someone steps up at several BSC schools and kicks in $10m extra a year for sports, we will never move up to FBS.

I must have really touched a nerve. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to offend. It's true that I am clueless. I would guess the only people who are not clueless in this situation are the university presidents, athletic directors, and conference commissioners. Sorry but I'm not going to leave the forum because you want me to. Can't help you there.

So what do you think will happen to New Mexico State football if the Sun Belt kicks them out? Seems like they're in a really tough spot without even the Big Sky as a landing spot. Why have the Mountain West schools given them the cold shoulder over the years?

Is there any reason that the BSC wouldn't be willing to bring NMSU into the fold too, if they had no other options? I know there hasn't been any specific discussion about them joining the league, which has focused solely on Idaho since they're a former member, but I don't see any reason not to let them in, if they were interested.

[SonomaCat]

Another interesting comment-he's concerned about the league getting too big. 14 teams fighting for one automatic bid. I assume he's talking here about sports other than football? Could there ever be a merger with the WAC-who could use a few more teams for stability? That may be a little far fetched, but who knows?

Holy crap. Merger with the WAC? As Ron White would say "here's your sign.". Talk about a stupid plan to move up to FBS. Not a single football team in the group and you propose merging with that worthless conference. Are you from Belgrade or inbreed from North Dakota?

Did you listen to the interviews? The WAC was discussed quite extensively.

[Hawks86]

Update.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/sports/co ... 27180.html

I had to open it in incognito to read it.

[John K]

Update.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/sports/co ... 27180.html

I had to open it in incognito to read it.

New Mexico State has sort of been left out of this discussion, but it sounds like them and Idaho would be dealt with as a package deal by the Sun Belt, i.e. if they boot UI out of the league, then NMSU will probably be out as well. i wonder what the future holds for them? Would they also consider applying for membership in the Big Sky? It doesn't seem like they'd have any more/better options than UI, if they can't stay in the SBC. I can't imagine the Mountain West wanting either of them, and playing as an independent doesn't seem like a very attractive long term solution for either program.