Gophers 2015 football season

[WildBill]

Considering Alvarez was the one pushing other BIG teams to have tougher non conference, it seems silly that they would try. I can't speak for Bohl but if i had the chance to play my former employee, id jump at it.

[NDSUstudent]

Considering Alvarez was the one pushing other BIG teams to have tougher non conference, it seems silly that they would try. I can't speak for Bohl but if i had the chance to play my former employee, id jump at it.

Obviously now it won't happen because of Alvarez but that doesn't mean NDSU hasn't tried. When Brock committed he said the coaches told him he would play against Wisconsin. I remember NDSU was in negotiations for a game but they fell through.

As for Bohl and Nebraska, Bohl's exit wasn't exactly a happy one. I don't think either party really wanted that game.

[Hail bison]

How is it different?

Your gophers are not the mighty big ten program expected to roll NDSU. NDSU is expected to dominate the sioux

[SDbison]

Look, I think SD has been acting like a total asshole in this thread, so I'm not defending him one bit. But your argument here makes no sense at all. How does playing NDSU prevent you from playing teams like TCU? They are not mutually exclusive.

For now, the Big Ten is still on an eight-game conference schedule. That leaves four nonconference games. As a mid-tier P5 program, you need three of those to be home games. The only way you get (decent) P5 programs to come to your house is with H/H deals. That takes care of two of your nonconference games(the away and one of the homes).

But the other two home games have to be guarantee games. You're not going to get a "national exposure" team to come to your house for cash. That means an FCS, G5, or maybe a bottom dwelling P5 if you're lucky. Those types of games are unavoidable in your scheduling model. And those types of games aren't all that attractive to Gopher fans, leading to weak crowds.

The difference between those types of games and one against NDSU is in the gate. You pay a SJSU, MTSU, EIU or even a WMU to come to your house and Gopher fans will not be chomping at the bit to get to the game. Gopher fans may view NDSU the same, but the Bison can bring enough of their own fans to make up the difference; those other types of programs can't.

So the choice isn't between a strongly attended TCU or a strongly attended NDSU, it's between a weakly attended MAC/MWC/SBC/FCS or a strongly attended NDSU. Until you change your OOC scheduling model to two home/two away, NDSU is a logical choice for financial reasons. The only reason to avoid scheduling NDSU is fear of losing.

I'm not faulting your program for that fear, BTW. You're trying to build your program up above bottom-dwelling status to mid-tier at least. Losing to NDSU semi-regularly would significantly hurt that effort. You need to avoid that. But playing NDSU is not the lose/lose that some of you try to suggest. It's just that the win of increased gate is less valuable than the reputation impact of losing.


Before longhorn chimes in, it's that distinction that makes a UM/NDSU game slightly different than an NDSU/UND game. Scheduling NDSU would result in about a 7k swing for the UM gate. Scheduling UND is only going to result in a few hundred at best for NDSU. If UM was selling out every game already, then I'd agree the situations would be similar. But UM is bringing in around 44k for their least-attended OOC game, while their highest game overall(which NDSU would match) hits north of 51k. If I go back two years, the difference between high and low increases to over 10k. NDSU's least attended OOC game is around 18.8k, while the highest game is 19.1k. A 300 seat difference does not compare at all to 7k-10k seats.

Yeah, go ahead and discuss the topics I brought up and then call me an asshole. How about you go F yourself dick. I will defend my comments forever........no reason for dedicated goopher threads at bisonville.......there are other sites for that. None of them would tolerate a Bison recruiting thread.

[SDbison]

I loved watching the bison win those 2 games against Minnesota however as a fan of both programs to not recognize that those were dark days of gopher football is silly in the least

LOL........but the goofs are in the mighty Big Ten of FBS (gods gift to football)..........how could they ever lose to lowly DII NDSU?

[WildBill]

Most Fan sites do have threads about other teams, other subjects, FYI

[scottietohottie]

Most Fan sites do have threads about other teams, other subjects, FYI

FYI most other fan boards suck. This is Bisonville.

[MNLonghorn10]

fuck. I bet half of these guys are over 60 and will only ever see things their way.

"back in my day sonny........"

[Vet70]

[NorthernBison]

The Gophers might be our biggest competition in the region for quite a few players we REALLY want badly.

Their relevance matters.