Join The Forum’s Jeff Kolpack and WDAY sports director Dom Izzo as they bring you the latest from the world of NDSU Bison athletics.
Join The Forum’s Jeff Kolpack and WDAY sports director Dom Izzo as they bring you the latest from the world of NDSU Bison athletics.
I hope the reporting your talking about is questioning the leadership of the Summit League Jeff. How could they not invite UND or UNC for baseball? Poor leadership will be the demise of this league, and someone should question Douple how those invites didn’t happen? I really don’t see MVC full membership in SU’s future anytime soon either. If it is it won’t be the MVC it is today. Probably just Summit 2.0 or NCC 3.0.
Gene should honestly give the Big Sky a call and offer them a full 14th member while Idaho is still making up their mind. He wouldn’t because it would look like he’s following UND, but at least the Conference would be stable and NDSU joining would make the Big Sky far and away the best FCS conference in football. Much better than staying in the Summit or hoping that the MVC might call one day which is very wishful thinking I’m afraid. Gene needs to swallow his pride and do what’s best for NDSU.
Thanks for your interest in Bison athletics.
Apparently what you are saying is that Gene needs to swallow his pride and do what’s best for und. und desparately needs a travel partner and they think NDSU is supposed to help them.
KCBison, you’ve got me stumped.
Why does UND “desperately need a travel partner”?
For away games, UND is making the same trips no matter who the “partner” is.
For home games, having a Grand Forks/Fargo trip would make it easier for the opponents. It wouldn’t help UND one bit.
He’s just bitter because Kansas City has left the conference. Can’t watch the esteemed buffalo in his own back yard.
The Big 3 Dakota schools are set. Traditions, fan bases and conference are all pulling in the same direction. Restablishing a foothold in the Dakotas for UND would be helped along greatly if they could get one of the 3 major Dakota schools to leave the Dakotas. USD almost fell for that once. The big sky is not the direction for the true Big Dakota 3. They have nothing to run from and no reason to quit.
Could care less about UMKC leaving. Football wise, I have Missouri State, UNI, and Illinois football games to watch. Having a lot of west coast games would make me bitter and why would I want to have us move down to a lower league.
You are right that NDSU joining any conference would automatically make it the best FCS conference.
Right now I think MVFC is the best FCS conference, and the Summit is much better than the Big Sky for basketball.
I do think an FBS future with the Dakota and Montana schools is on the horizon.
Thanks for the blog guys.
The Western Illinois game will be one where Taylor Braun would be a big help. With the defense WIU plays and the slow down limited possessions every player that can score is important. One of the young guys will need to step up and score on Thursday for the Bison to win. TrayVonn will also need to have another great game. He wasn’t on as much against IPFW.
It would sure be nice to get an invite to the Missouri Valley to end all of the conference movement speculation. Any chance the MAC or Mountain West comes calling before the Valley does?
While the MAC may be an FBS conference I see it as a step down. Who wants wants to play on Tuesday and Wednesday nights in front of 4,000 fans. Eastern Michigan when they played their last home football game on November 23, 2012 had 1,349 fans at the game. Look it up! Crazy!
In the MVFC 6 of the 10 schools averaged over 10,000 in attendance.
Thank you for your interest in NDSU athletics.
I watch Weber State play Idaho State in mens bb tonight. Weber’s RPI is 128 and the Bison are 67. I saw the “smartness” the Bison have going for them, watching Weber. Saul Philips is a good coach.
My sources are telling me NDSU is not even remotely on the Missouri Valley Conference radar right now. I’m also getting the vibe that if the Horizon wanted to add Oakland, it would have already done so.
My sources tell me that when NDSU and SDSU names were floated out as a possibility (they were suggested as possible travel partners) several non-MVFC football schools in the conference said if the conference decided to add football as a sponsored sport (which if NDSU and SDSU were added they would be at 7) they were done. The non-football schools do not want football to drive decision making of the conference. Who can blame them. Look at what happened to the Big East when football took over decision making.
MVC exploration committee is concentrating on adding the best basketball schools within the existing MVC footprint that have excellent facilities, good RPI, can add TV sets, strong attendance, and can bring NCAA tourney shares to the table.
Hey Jeff or Dom, I was wondering if I could get your take on how good a facility the new indoor track at NDSU is compared to the facilities SDSU and UND are going to build. I was on Terry Vandrovec’s blog a month ago and the Jacks’ fans were talking how they would have a superior indoor facility compared ot NDSU. On the sports I heard the UND people saying they they are going to have a track that no one else in the region will have. Are both of these facilities elite compared to what the Bison have built? Do you think the Bison missed on the Lien kid from Moorhead? He is a really good basketball player and a very good athlete.
do a little hunting online and you’ll find the plans/pictures for both UND and SDSU’s facilities. no expert here-but my uneducated opinion is they both look really impressive.
Juan that is what I have been hearing! Could the Bison have sacrificed top quality to get it built quick? It doesn’t sound like the NDSU way but look at the trouble they are having in getting the last couple million for the basketball arena. Maybe they thought it would appease Bison fans who want to see projects come to fruition. Especially with the huge success of the football program, which would lead most people to believe that their would be a wave of money coming into the athletic department. I don’t know the answer to this just asking the question.
NDSU’s indoor facility is not anywhere near an apples to oranges comparison to UND and SDSU.
NDSU’s facility was nothing more than making a building to get the indoor track out of the BSA. It’s a flat 200m track, which you don’t find too many of at the elite college track programs. Those programs all have banked 200m tracks, but that apparently was not in the budget.
SDSU and UND’s facilities will have flat 300m tracks, which are becoming very popular now since they allow a (nearly) full sized football field in the middle. Both UND and SDSU will have such a field in their facilities, basically meaning that they will also be used as indoor football practice facilities. Additionally, their buildings will either include or be connected to their entire football operations centers (coach’s offices, meeting rooms, locker room, full training facilities, weight room, academic center).
NDSU has some of that in the Fargodome now and some of it in the BSA.
Once completed, both SDSU and UND will have surpassed NDSU for football *practice* facilities, both in terms of quality and in terms of convenience to players and coaches (particularly in the winter). NDSU still has the best *gameday* facility. The only other exception I’ll note is the NDSU coach’s offices are the nicest in the upper midwest and that’s not a joke. Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin even are not as nice.
Thanks Indoor! Do you think this will help UND and SDSU compete or surpass NDSU in track and football? I think NDSU should have waited to do the track like UND and SDSU. just my opinion. I know the SDSU fans on Terry Vandrovec’s blog were excited about having a facility advantage over the Bison because the Bison usually have the financial of facilitiy edge. Looks like those days might be coming to an end. Go Bison!
1) Baseball – UND and UNC have both officially joined the WAC in baseball. Check out the WAC’s website. It makes sense as four Great West baseball schools are joining the WAC in all sports in addition to them having CSU Bakersfield and Sac St.
2) I would be in favor of NDSU joining the MAC if UNI, SDSU and IL St also joined. That would provide some continuity and rivalries for NDSU right away while building up relationships with the rest of the MAC teams.
It’s not a step down from MVFC and NDSU would really have a chance to dominate that conference in the way that Boise St dominated the WAC for so many years and built up their national reputation. It’s really the only way to continue growing NDSU’s football brand much more than it is now. This is as good as it can be in FCS.
3) The Horizon is waiting to see what happens – just like everyone else is right now. They want to see if they’re going to lose teams to the A10 or the MVC before they start adding schools.
Right now the Horizon basically has this geography:
Cleveland & Youngstown in NE Ohio
Detroit by itself
Loyala and UIC in Chicago with Valpo not too far outside the metro
Wright St is now by itself in Dayton (Butler used to be a reasonable drive away)
Milwaukee and Green Bay in the west
A couple of subtractions could alter the conference dynamic and have them looking to the Summit for members.
As is, Detroit is blocking Oakland’s entrance but they might want a partner if enough teams are taken away with no other good options.
Top 100 athletic program in all of college sports the last 10 years. Why waste time with the MVC, start making our pitch to something bigger. Any of the BCS conferences would be lucky to have NDSU in their conference.
Dude.
Where’s your car?
The Big10′s new stance on not playing FCS schools is a direct response to our program. The Big10 is trying its hardest to erase our beatdown of the gophers from its history. Try finding highlights of it, the Big10 Network has made sure there are none in existence. What does that tell you about the standing of our athletic programs. Greater than most of the Big10.