NDSU to the FBS

[ByeSonBusiness]

thanks for doing the work on this. To me, this says that MW is almost doable. Those California schools though...they just really are out of our footprint. No way around it. Our fans travel well when we play 1 FBS game every couple years, but our fan base cannot do that 6 times a year, especially if we're talking flying or driving over 1,000 miles to get to a game. Laramie and Fort Collins would be the only real options for mass road tripping. We would be almost just as close to FBS schools as an independent. I personally would love to see SDSU and the two Montana schools jump with us for football-only MWC. And for the MAC, I really don't get excited playing directional Michigan schools (or any school) on Tuesday nights. Much prefer Saturday gameday.

I am sensing hype around a move to the FBS more on this board than I've heard before, and it's not just Lakes this time. But hype isn't going to do much. We need Billy Turner, Carson Wentz, and Chris Board to fly to Fargo and knock on Matt's door and dump a million bucks in his office (literally, I mean only $1 million) and say, "Who's with us?", and then we need every NDSU grad with a job to commit to $100 a month. If we're going to raise the money it's got to be grass roots people who care enough about their team to put a line item in their budget each month. It's not a football celebrity's job to lead and finance the transition. They can help jump start it, but it's going to be bootstrapping North Dakotans who keep it sustainable for the long run.

Might want to leave Chris Board out of it...dude is on a small contract and after taxes probably has less than a million dollars to his name.

[SkolMitzel]

Dreaming here. But made a rebuilt FCS with 84 teams. In this scenario, the upper-tier G5 teams stay at the FBS level and the lower tier teams come down to the FCS. Then on the FCS level, the top tier teams stay well the lower tier teams go down to Divison 2. Also had Grand Caynon and VCU starting football programs.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[1998braves64]

Dreaming here. But made a rebuilt FCS with 84 teams. In this scenario, the upper-tier G5 teams stay at the FBS level and the lower tier teams come down to the FCS. Then on the FCS level, the top tier teams stay well the lower tier teams go down to Divison 2. Also had Grand Caynon and VCU starting football programs.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Your games would have to be 5 division opponents 3 cross division and 4 ooc. Unless intrasquad games work??

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk

[Hammerhead]

Kicking UND and USD back down to D-II.

Dreaming here. But made a rebuilt FCS with 84 teams. In this scenario, the upper-tier G5 teams stay at the FBS level and the lower tier teams come down to the FCS. Then on the FCS level, the top tier teams stay well the lower tier teams go down to Divison 2. Also had Grand Caynon and VCU starting football programs.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[HerdBot]

Dreaming here. But made a rebuilt FCS with 84 teams. In this scenario, the upper-tier G5 teams stay at the FBS level and the lower tier teams come down to the FCS. Then on the FCS level, the top tier teams stay well the lower tier teams go down to Divison 2. Also had Grand Caynon and VCU starting football programs.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Even if that happens, it really doesn't change my desire to move up or the end result. The Mountain West isn't combining with the FCS. They have too much TV money. The Sunbelt is full of teams who wanted to get the fuck out of the FCS. The only conference that even has a slight chance is the MAC.

It's quite obvious the FCS is going to see all it's top teams eventually leave anyways which is a similar scenario

[23Bison]

I'd just rather not be associated with the FCS anymore. The bottom of the MAC and CUSA and some of the Indy schools are bad enough. But those are the teams I could tolerate. There are about 10 good (I use that word loosely) FCS teams while the rest are pretty crap. I consider the bottom of the MAC and CUSA to be about par with the top 25-11 of FCS.

[HerdBot]

I'd just rather not be associated with the FCS anymore. The bottom of the MAC and CUSA and some of the Indy schools are bad enough. But those are the teams I could tolerate. There are about 10 good (I use that word loosely) FCS teams while the rest are pretty crap. I consider the bottom of the MAC and CUSA to be about par with the top 25-11 of FCS.

I'm with you. I think the top FCS conferences are great. The MVFC, Big Sky, and CAA... a handful of Southland and Big South teams. I'm proud to be associated with. Great level of football. It's the rest of the teams who aren't even on the same playing field as we are and it's getting worse. There is a reason Kennesaw State made a playoff run as a new team

[mnriverbison]

The MAC is the best option. Plain and simple. All sports really. Basketball would be a significant improvement.

Tend to agree. As much as we think of ND as "west" of the midwest and as much as I prefer the opponent roster in the MWC, MAC probably makes more sense for us.

Biggest risk in all of this, in my opinion, is that those conferences are the proving grounds for Pac12 and big10 coaching prospects. Part of the deal, but you cannot expect to hire a new coach every 5 years and always make a home run hire. Our luck in that department has many in our fanbase thinking that it is easy to repeat.

[mnriverbison]

No we would keep everything exactly as it is now. We will get our core from ND, SD, MN, WI, NE, IL and MO. We will recruit skilled athletes from Florida and Georgia

The only difference is we will have 22 more full rides essentially spread out over 4 years. Why on earth would we try to recruit New Mexico, Colorado and Utah just because of a conference change. Maybe we could pick up a few random ones in those territories but that's it. I could at best see us getting a larger recruiting budget and maybe expanding in the areas we're successful. Maybe getting an occasional player in our normal footprint who is a step ip

I think that is based on the theory that even guys who are leaving home would occasionally like friends and family to be able to watch them. That's a line that's been told so many times that I believe it now with no real proof that it is true.

[HerdBot]

Tend to agree. As much as we think of ND as "west" of the midwest and as much as I prefer the opponent roster in the MWC, MAC probably makes more sense for us.

Biggest risk in all of this, in my opinion, is that those conferences are the proving grounds for Pac12 and big10 coaching prospects. Part of the deal, but you cannot expect to hire a new coach every 5 years and always make a home run hire. Our luck in that department has many in our fanbase thinking that it is easy to repeat.

I think both are options. The MAC plays some games on Wednesdays which makes it less appealing and has a weak TV deal. I don't have a problem staying in the Summit for other sports. That makes us more appealing for a football only invite. It also relieves financial stress on our athletic department with all the bus trips. In a perfect world, we would be MVC for other sports. It's only like 6 trips per year for football which makes me want the better conference