CSNbbs

Just curious. Idaho always gets flack for staying in the FBS, but I never see people giving it to New Mexico State.

(04-13-2014 07:05 PM)dmacfour Wrote: [ -> ]Just curious. Idaho always gets flack for staying in the FBS, but I never see people giving it to New Mexico State.

Better geography for New Mexico State I guess? Their proximity to Texas. They border Texas and Texas border's Louisiana etc.

(04-13-2014 07:09 PM)Bleeds_Purple Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2014 07:05 PM)dmacfour Wrote: [ -> ]Just curious. Idaho always gets flack for staying in the FBS, but I never see people giving it to New Mexico State.

Better geography for New Mexico State I guess? Their proximity to Texas. They border Texas and Texas border's Louisiana etc.

To be fair, there are 11 FBS teams in or around the state of Idaho.

(04-13-2014 07:05 PM)dmacfour Wrote: [ -> ]Just curious. Idaho always gets flack for staying in the FBS, but I never see people giving it to New Mexico State.

This will sound totally a-holish, but Idaho really doesn't bring much to the table.

With NMSU, I think most folks believe that the Sun Belt will be bringing in the Olympic sports, of which their basketball provides value.

I don't think that is the case with Idaho.

Or in a different way, NMSU fits better in the Sun Belt than Idaho does. Personally? I like Idaho. But you guys still don't really fit in the Sun Belt. You are a massive geographic outlier. You don't raise the profile of the conference in football (or if we brought in all sports, basketball or baseball).

I really don't want to see you guys drop to FCS. I would like it if you guys did, however, find a new home.

(04-13-2014 07:13 PM)dmacfour Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2014 07:09 PM)Bleeds_Purple Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2014 07:05 PM)dmacfour Wrote: [ -> ]Just curious. Idaho always gets flack for staying in the FBS, but I never see people giving it to New Mexico State.

Better geography for New Mexico State I guess? Their proximity to Texas. They border Texas and Texas border's Louisiana etc.

There are 11 FBS teams in Idaho or in bordering states.

Yes but you're in the Sun Belt not the MWC or Pac-12. It's not that they want you to drop to FCS is that they want you out of the sun belt. Idaho geographically belongs in the MWC but it's not going to happen anytime soon.

It also might be because they're sick of people asking who are you playing this weekend? And when they say Idaho people reply with you da hoe.

1. Kibbie Dome. (when you had to 'borrow' Wash. St. stadium to qualify for FBS and still haven done any stadium expansion to get to 25K at minimum that's a big tell tale sign you are not FBS worthy)
2. Attendance. Even at 16k capacity you didn't sell out your tiny stadium. There some tickets sold but the crowd on TV showed around 6k.

Either start breaking ground on a stadium for FBS or go down to FCS.
Idaho is by no means that only one that should drop down. Eastern Michigan should drop down also....they even had worse attendance than Idaho. Performance on the field doesn't mean anything if you can't bring in the crowd. And if UMass can't get it together, they should drop back down also.

(04-13-2014 07:05 PM)dmacfour Wrote: [ -> ]Just curious. Idaho always gets flack for staying in the FBS, but I never see people giving it to New Mexico State.

No one is giving you flak from this board for staying. However, NMSU's Olympic Sports make it likely that they will be able to maintain an SBC Membership. Idaho on the other hand is so geographically isolated from the rest of the SBC, that staying in the league will be difficult. And with Olympic's in the Big Sky, if Idaho leaves the SBC, they'll either have to play independent, or drop down.

(04-13-2014 07:14 PM)TheRevSWT Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2014 07:05 PM)dmacfour Wrote: [ -> ]Just curious. Idaho always gets flack for staying in the FBS, but I never see people giving it to New Mexico State.

This will sound totally a-holish, but Idaho really doesn't bring much to the table.

With NMSU, I think most folks believe that the Sun Belt will be bringing in the Olympic sports, of which their basketball provides value.

I don't think that is the case with Idaho.

Or in a different way, NMSU fits better in the Sun Belt than Idaho does. Personally? I like Idaho. But you guys still don't really fit in the Sun Belt. You are a massive geographic outlier. You don't raise the profile of the conference in football (or if we brought in all sports, basketball or baseball).

I really don't want to see you guys drop to FCS. I would like it if you guys did, however, find a new home.

This would be my response. I don't want to seem disrespectful, and will pull for the Vandals wherever they land and while they're here, but it's just a geographical mismatch. It also poses a lot of difficulty when picking that 12th member. I know existing SBC teams aren't happy about having so many FCS move ups (us and App are a part of that view no matter our FCS history), so it's tough to include the trip to Moscow with more move ups included in whatever 12 team football conference ends up with.

(04-13-2014 08:07 PM)MWC Tex Wrote: [ -> ]1. Kibbie Dome. (when you had to 'borrow' Wash. St. stadium to qualify for FBS and still haven done any stadium expansion to get to 25K at minimum that's a big tell tale sign you are not FBS worthy)
2. Attendance. Even at 16k capacity you didn't sell out your tiny stadium. There some tickets sold but the crowd on TV showed around 6k.

Either start breaking ground on a stadium for FBS or go down to FCS.
Idaho is by no means that only one that should drop down. Eastern Michigan should drop down also....they even had worse attendance than Idaho. Performance on the field doesn't mean anything if you can't bring in the crowd. And if UMass can't get it together, they should drop back down also.

Here's the thing though: How can Idaho justify a 25K stadium when a P5 school can't hit capacity 6 miles away? Wazzu would barely fill a 25K stadium with their attendance figures. MWC schools struggle to hit 60% capacity with 30K+ stadiums. Idaho could certainly use 9K more seats for bigger games, needs they to work out other issues before worrying about looking good on paper.

But for what it's worth, they have plans to expand to 27K. Who knows when it'll actually happen.

Geography and NMSU's basketball program. I honestly feel terrible for Idaho (and now UMass). I wished NDSt, EWU and other programs in that are moved up to save the WAC. In the future, who knows that may happen. I hope Idaho finds a conference that best fits their student athletes and their fan base. Unfortunately, that's not the Sun Belt.

(04-14-2014 12:27 AM)dmacfour Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2014 08:07 PM)MWC Tex Wrote: [ -> ]1. Kibbie Dome. (when you had to 'borrow' Wash. St. stadium to qualify for FBS and still haven done any stadium expansion to get to 25K at minimum that's a big tell tale sign you are not FBS worthy)
2. Attendance. Even at 16k capacity you didn't sell out your tiny stadium. There some tickets sold but the crowd on TV showed around 6k.

Either start breaking ground on a stadium for FBS or go down to FCS.
Idaho is by no means that only one that should drop down. Eastern Michigan should drop down also....they even had worse attendance than Idaho. Performance on the field doesn't mean anything if you can't bring in the crowd. And if UMass can't get it together, they should drop back down also.

Here's the thing though: How can Idaho justify a 25K stadium when a P5 school can't hit capacity 6 miles away? Wazzu would barely fill a 25K stadium with their attendance figures. MWC schools struggle to hit 60% capacity with 30K+ stadiums. Idaho could certainly use 9K more seats for bigger games, needs they to work out other issues before worrying about looking good on paper.

But for what it's worth, they have plans to expand to 27K. Who knows when it'll actually happen.

Idaho needs the twenty million dollar expansion to 22k. That is what Western Kentucky has and they moved on or up depending on your view. The possibility of having to move down makes that expansion logical.

Idaho does have a winning record vs NMSU and has one two bowl games in 15 years vs none in over fifty years. NMSU has publicly talked about moving down meaning their president. Idaho has never considered it only the public has.

To paraphrase, you don't have to drop down, but you can't stay here.
I look forward to playing Idaho this year. I respect the school, but even if you had a good program you just don't fit the SBC. Wish you luck and hope things work out, but i just don't see a long future with the conference.

Hopefully Idaho will go undefeated out of conference the next few years and the MWC will beg to take them, that's the best scenario for all involved IMO

(04-14-2014 06:07 AM)GaSouthern Wrote: [ -> ]Hopefully Idaho will go undefeated out of conference the next few years and the MWC will beg to take them, that's the best scenario for all involved IMO

Idaho is a state flagship school of pretty high academic standing and represents the whole state. It's just a small state so they dont have a lot of clout but they try to hang at the top level and like schools like Delaware and Rhode Island and North Dakota they dont have large numbers working in their favor. nobody seems to be pushing for any of the mac schools to drop down and some of them only have a few thousand at home football games...

(04-14-2014 12:27 AM)dmacfour Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2014 08:07 PM)MWC Tex Wrote: [ -> ]1. Kibbie Dome. (when you had to 'borrow' Wash. St. stadium to qualify for FBS and still haven done any stadium expansion to get to 25K at minimum that's a big tell tale sign you are not FBS worthy)
2. Attendance. Even at 16k capacity you didn't sell out your tiny stadium. There some tickets sold but the crowd on TV showed around 6k.

Either start breaking ground on a stadium for FBS or go down to FCS.
Idaho is by no means that only one that should drop down. Eastern Michigan should drop down also....they even had worse attendance than Idaho. Performance on the field doesn't mean anything if you can't bring in the crowd. And if UMass can't get it together, they should drop back down also.

Here's the thing though: How can Idaho justify a 25K stadium when a P5 school can't hit capacity 6 miles away? Wazzu would barely fill a 25K stadium with their attendance figures. MWC schools struggle to hit 60% capacity with 30K+ stadiums. Idaho could certainly use 9K more seats for bigger games, needs they to work out other issues before worrying about looking good on paper.

But for what it's worth, they have plans to expand to 27K. Who knows when it'll actually happen.

I don't think you saw WSU attendance figures last year. Their upgraded stadium has 33K capacity and averaged 29,737. They are actually upgrading the press box and club suites which I think was just completed.
Idaho has always had 'plans'. If Idaho was really serious about stay FBS they would actually have put in $$ into their facilites regardless, becasue that is what is necessary to be in this level. As for MWC schools, at least they have FBS stadiums and there are some schools preparing to build new stadiums.
Eastern Michigan...God love them, with their pitful 4k average attendance at least put $$ in a 30K stadium. I am calling for them to move down the FCS.

Similar boat Lamar is in. Lamar has the size, money, and sports to fit in the SBC.
Beaumont MSA is bigger than most SBC msa. Beaumont 1 hour drive from nation 4th largest city.
Lamar sits nearly half way between Texas st and UL. Perfect fit? no, Lamar is too far west as is Idaho too far west.

Same can be said of Jax st, perfect fit wrong location.

Idaho is in Idaho. That is the problem.