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The one reality of FCS is it is a football division for basketball schools. NDSU is one of only a few football schools playing in a basketball division. That is reality. The alternatives at the moment suck. Given all the other parameters, if all the other FCS schools got serious about football, it is a nice level for us. Less scholarships, smaller stadium, and more regional competition.
I don't think the rest of FCS will catch up in intensity. I don't think most of the G5 schools match us in football intensity. But now we have the problem of being the little kid with not much to offer. Geographically, we suck. Demographically, people don't appreciate we have national interest, so we suck.
We are in no man's land. There is nothing left to do here but no where else to go that is better. The one thing that is going to happen is the FBS shakeup. That is becoming more real every day. I thought it was going to be initiated by the P5 conferences to break away but I think it will come from G5 schools saying they don't even want to try keeping up anymore.
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If we move up....we lose some of our national interest and become blah
There is no up to move too. The G5 are also a bunch of basketball schools with football teams and the P5 don't want to share with them either. It's the same game only more expensive.
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I don't disagree with this. Sagarin is really the only way we can characterize our season compared to FBS schools since we aren't at that level. Marshall had a nice year. They finished 9 spots ahead of the Bison and would be even up in the Fargodome. Yet even with their 13-1 record, they didn't get any more exposure this year then we did. In fact, over the past 4 year, NDSU has been in the top 50 teams in the country and you have to get into the top 15 before you start seeing single schools with consistently more national attention. I am not saying we are getting this tremendous amount of national spotlight either, it is just after you get outside the top 10, there really isn't much said about anyone more than a couple of times per season. Then when you throw Gameday, ESPN, ESPN2, and FS1 games in there, there aren't a whole lot of schools outside the top 10 who can say they received much more national attention. Then you got Fargo on TV mixed in there. Nationally, people are generally interested in Fargo, NDSU and ND. We are different here. Being in the MAC does nothing. Sunbelt does nothing. MWC does a little more than nothing, but maybe not much more than what you have now. This year could have seen NDSU in the Fiesta Bowl if they won the MWC, so that would have been something. Of course when there is a shakeup, the MWC might get gutted of its best teams to top off the P5 conferences. At least then we will probably still be back in the second tier and be the top team with a newly formed G8 or something and then it is a new ballgame.
The reality also is right now you are correct. Any move less than a P5 conference, which isn't going to happen even if the Big 12 needs some schools and we meet like 7 of the 12 criteria for it, will probably hurt the program in the long run more than staying in FCS and being competitive every season. Even if the Big 12 threw the biggest present of all time and sent an invite this way, we need the state to back the move because we are froze out for 5 years of the main bulk of TV money for that long and need a new stadium. The long run would be a boost of $27M+ a year but they would see the 5 year $175M startup as being prohibitive. Dreaming is fun, but when you start to look at every angle, it starts turning into a nightmare.
When the shakeup is all finished, the P5 will take all the G5 football schools and now you have your new FCS. Now we are football school playing with more basketball schools. The good news is that some of them do take football a little more seriously and with platform in which they can be competitive, might further increase the product division wide.
I think sagarian is great and all; but it doesn't change that NDSU BEATING Iowa stif we are on equal footing is a non story
As are many of the games you guys hang on to