Big Sky is on.

[tony]

Just thought I'd start a new thread for this to separate it from the first topic.

Fargo Forum: NDSU shooting for Big Sky

I'm cautiously optimistic. I'd love for NDSU to get into the Big Sky.

It didn't seem that hard for Wanless to oppose NDSU's and SDSU's admission to the Big Sky since he hasn't even listened to their proposals yet. Wanless should have checked Expedia out - if I can find a flight that gets from Sacramento to Fargo in under five hours, I don't see why he can't find one that gets there in under six or seven.

[SDSUFAN]

Tony:
I posted nearly the same thought over on D2football, but Wanless's reaction has something to do with the possibilty that Sac State and Portland State are on thin ice with the Big SKy. *From what I understand the facilities and attendence standard that the Big Sky sets have not been met by these two schools. *With two eastern schools asking for admission, you can almost predict the Wanless reaction.

Another thing that comes to mind in light of a few years back when Cal-State Northridge football program got in trouble with the NCAA. The Big Sky was on verge of tossing CSN because they still had a 6000 seating facility for football and had done absolutely nothing since their admission to the Big Sky. Improving the seating accomodation for football was a condition for admission to the Big Sky.

*So standards do have a bearing gaining and maintaining membership in the Big Sky. *

I suspect SDSU will start to get in high gear in upgrading Coughlin and NDSU has talked very seriously about the improvements to Bison SPorts Center.

*With Fargo Dome and Frost at SDSU, the facilities are much better some of the current members. *Idaho State I think has 8000 facility for basketball and they consider that to be a showcase from reading their board.
I picked that up from their board as they were talking if their women got a regional spot in the playoffs and which facility the game would be played in. They have a place called Reed that seats 3600 and the big arena was mentioned as being 8000. Thats all I know. I wish that Bengal guy would come back inform us on what they really have in the Big Sky.

Frost currently seats 9100 for those interested.

[purplemavfan]

SDSU fan's comments on facilities were interesting; I have been to Frost Arena and it is definitely a division I type facility already in many ways--I am curious as to what upgrades if any would be done assuming SDSU goes to division I as planned. Coughlin stadium is in my mind a great place to watch football; with some updates and maybe the addition of permanent seating on the visitor's side it would make a nice D-1 AA stadium.

[BisonInTexas]

This brings to mind a couple of points:

1) NDSU was waiting for the SDSU decision before pushing the issue to apply to the Big Sky after all, despite Taylor's comments earlier this fall that NDSU would be presenting to the Big Sky Conference in Oct. Perhaps this was suggested behind the scenes by some of the BSC presidents.

2) Chapman's ties to the Big Sky Conference and Montana State are paying dividends. It is encouraging to hear that the Montana State president is taking the lead in calling the meeting to explore expansion.

On the subject of travel in the Big Sky, here is another quote from Ade Sponberg on the 1978 application to the BSC, courtesy of Ed Kolpack's Bison Football: Three Decades of Excellence:

Sponberg didn't feel the eastern location of the two North Dakota schools was that much of a drawback in their bid for membership.

"We had mileage charts which showed that one team would actually travel fewer miles with us in the league," he said. "For the non-revenue sports we were talking about one trip to Fargo every eight years."

Of course, in 1978, the BSC consisted of Montana State, Montana, Idaho State, Boise State, Idaho, Northern Arizona and Weber State. Today's makeup, with Portland State and Sac State, is more westward leaning.

As far as travel times go, I am sure there are some long journeys already in the BSC. Anecdotal evidence: I was flying from Dallas to California last month and had a stop in Phoenix. The Northern Arizona football team boarded and flew to Ontario, CA and then flew on up to Oakland on the same flight. So either they took a bus from Flagstaff to Phoenix (~100 miles) or flew and switched planes, flew the two hour flight to Ontario, waited for everyone to deplane and reboard and continued on up to Oakland (not sure of the flight time but I will guess about 1.5 to 2 hours), where a bus greeted them to take them to Sacramento (1+ hours if I remember correctly). Sounds like 5-7 hours of travel to me. Maybe they should get rid of Northern Arizona based on the same reasoning?

Like Tony, I am cautiously optimistic. The BSC would be my first choice. It is obviously NDSU's.

Craig

[tony]

When teams go to Flagstaff, I've heard that they fly into Phoenix and take a bus for the last 150 miles to Flagstaff - I imagine NAU does the same thing, bus and fly (or bus, fly, bus).

One thing about Fargo, you can be in your hotel twenty minutes after the plane hits the runway - assuming that there's a car there to pick you up.

SDSUFan, I've never heard that Sacramento State and Portland State are on thin ice with the Big Sky. Sure Portland State doesn't have very big crowds for BB (not even sure you can call 200/game a crowd), but even so, the Big Sky can't drop teams without endangering their automatic bid to the NCAA BB tourney. Besides, if NDSU gets into the Big Sky, I want it to be on its own merits, not at the expense of existing members. That's not the way to start off a relationship.

If the Big Sky decides to expand (and that's a fairly big IF), then I'll be a lot happier.

[SDSUFAN]

Tony:
I would like to disclose the source of that rumor but dont dare. Lets just consider it a rumor and let it stand at that.
:-X

I mention that Idaho State had a dome that seats 8000, but I went to their site and this dome was one of the first built in the 1970's and seats 12,000. So membership in the Big Sky would never mean a mountain snow storm in Pocatello for football.

Idaho State's president is named Bowen. Bowen was president of USD when the Dakota Dome was built in 1979. I dont know if Bowen's past association with USD will be a consideration when reviewing new members applications of the Big Sky. Atleast he will be familiar with both SDSU and NDSU.


I have driven to Phoenix about four times in January since 1998, and I think its about 200 miles from Flagstaff. Payson is at least 90 from Phoenix and Flagstaff seems to my recollection to be another 100 from Payson. None-the-less, getting to Flagstaff would most likely include air travel to Phoenix. I dont have a clue about the air service to Flagstaff. It probably not that great as Flagstaff is pretty much a college town.
Flagstaff is at least another 200 miles from Alberqurque so getting there might not be real easy, but doable.

Logan, Utah, home of Weber State is a few miles from Salt Lake City so bus rides are probably more common than one would think in the BSC.

[SDSUFAN]

I checked my Rand Mc Atlas and stand to be corrected as the distance between Phoenix and Flagstaff is 138 miles so Bison in Texas was more accurate when he said it was a 100 miles. Also Alberqueque is 328 miles from Flagstaff.

I also confused Weber State's location. They are in Ogden and not Logan. Ogden is only about 45 miles from SLC. No big deal on the bus ride. Utah State is in Logan.

[BisonInTexas]

I couldn't quite remember the distance from Phoenix to Flagstaff - so that's why I guessed ~100 miles. I drove it exactly once when traveling from Tucson to ND for a Christmas break in 1990 when I was attending grad school at the U of A. I was remembering it was about the same as the distance from Tucson to Phoenix (118 miles, IIRC), but in actuality it is a little more (I guess it all kind of runs together in a 2000 mile trip! ). Anyway, my guess is that given a choice, a majority of the teams would prefer to travel to Fargo or Brookings over going to Flagstaff as far as convenience is concerned.

The points about teams being on shakey ground are actually good selling points for NDSU and SDSU, in my opinion. The Big Sky conference has had a very fluid membership over its existence, what with Cal State Northridge, Idaho, Boise State, Nevada, etc. moving up or dropping out. If they wanted to expand they would be looking for teams that are committed to DI-AA for the long haul and ones that can be successful at that level. NDSU and SDSU are two prime examples of those types of institutions. It might be time to re-evaluate the long term vision for the Big Sky and figure out what types of universities they want to be affiliated with. Hopefully, NDSU and SDSU fit those criteria.

Another idle thought: Why haven't we heard of UNC applying for membership in the Big Sky? Or have they?

Craig

[SDSUFAN]

UNC and the Big Sky has not gotten much print even in the Greeley Tribune. I dont know what the story is on that possibility. They have talked about the Mid Continent Conference which is basically a Basketball conference . That seems unusal when their current strength is in Football, Volleyball and women's basketball. Their mens team is not doing much and one of their best recruits, Aaron Austin is playing in the NCC this year. I forget where.

Both Nottingham, though new and Butler Hancock need improvements to get them up to D1 level. Nottingham is brand new its just needs additional seating on the vistors side. Butler Hancock is very small and seats about 4000 and additions to that building look costly in my estimation. They may have to build a brand new basketball arena, but when they have been such a poor draw some times only 500, it might be hard to justify. I know they have a Monfort and Coors working on this project and how much money they will pony up and able to raise will kind of tell their story in the D1 saga.

[JBB]

Sac State and Portland are only going to visit the Dakotas every other year in football and every year in BB. For the rest of the schools whats the difference? They can go to the west coast or come to the Dakotas.

The Dakotas would replace 2 non conference games. The only addition to their travel budget would be the difference between the current non conference travel costs and the travel costs to the Dakotas. Like Ade said,*that could actually mean a reduction in overall travel when taken over a period of time.

It's going to be interestsing to see how the 2 schools sell the idea of membership to the others. *Both are land grant institutions just like Montana, Montana State and Idaho State. *NDSU/SDSU would bring the land grants to 5. *The other 5 schools are regionally based public universities. *They might not see things the same as the land grants. However, I too believe stability and strength of programs is going to be a big seller for the athletics. The quality of the education, common research interests and the possibility of future partnerships is going to help the academic side.

SLC to Ogden would be like Sioux Falls to Brookings. Its all interstate and an easy trip. I imagine visitors would fly to either Fargo or Sioux Falls and then bus to the other school. So maybe its the bus ride from Fargo to Brookings that he's thinking about? At any rate he sounded very negative about it.

Maybe its really the weather not the travel? He probably has people behind the scenes that have a huge negative about the weather even though its the same as Montana.