(08-07-2012 09:41 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-07-2012 09:35 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(08-06-2012 07:17 PM)Caltex2 Wrote:  Minnesota State had some really great teams back in the day. Craig T. Nelson was a whale of a coach.

If they had any motivation at all, they should have made a move back then. I'm guessing they aren't really interested. The 4 Dakota schools moved up and UNO moved up while dropping football, but Mankato and St. Cloud stayed in Division II despite their North Central Conference collapsing around them.

Caltex was joking. Craig T Nelson is an actor who played the football coach at "Minnesota State" on the long-running, mediocre TV series "Coach. (Was it long running? It seemed like it ran for a long time, compared to how funny I didn't find it.)

My daughter likes smilies. "What does nutkick mean?"

I remember the series. I was pointing out that they should have used the publicity from the TV show to help them. Sorry, you are the one who missed the point.

I have never been to a D-3 event. It is glorfied high school and/or intramural sports at its best!

Until 1999 no school had the name Minnesota State. Mankato State changed its name to Minnesota State - Mankato in 1999 and Moorhead State changed to Minnesota State - Moorhead in 2000.

Mankato is Division II except in hockey where they play Division I. Moorhead is Division II.

(08-07-2012 09:50 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Until 1999 no school had the name Minnesota State.

Sure they did, Hayden Fox coached the Screaming Eagles before he took over the NFL's Orlando Breakers expansion team.

(08-02-2012 03:54 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  The problem is that no one cares about FCS. When Western Kentucky won the FCS national championship...they gained 85 new season ticketholders. And FCS football isn't cheap either.

I don't understand why anyone would be anything other than DIII or FBS.

The same could be said of Division 2 basketball: nobody cares about it. I want my alma mater in Div I!!

FYI, my alma mater is the University of Montevallo, Alabama's only public liberal arts school (or at least it claims that), located about halfway between Birmingham & Montgomery. Rusty Greer is probably our most famous athletic alumnus.

MSU-Mankato's nickname Mavericks is a relatively recent change. Switching it to the Screaming Eagles would have been awesome once they gained the Minnesota State name.

It was originally thought that Mankato would be the only school in the Minnesota State U system that would go by Minnesota St. (Other ST schools are St Cloud, Bemidji, Winona, Moorhead, and Southwest). Moorhead later choosing to switch names messed up Mankato's plan to be the sole Minnesota State.

(08-07-2012 04:38 AM)BadWillHunting Wrote:  

(08-03-2012 01:34 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-03-2012 01:12 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  Leave us out of your examples. We are very happy drawing 20K+ to games and being on national TV a half dozen times. Also, you can make snide remarks about the bowls YOU don't care about but they are no less meaningful than the bowl games between the also-rans in the larger conferences.

The more the merrier and if it wasn't a great idead then national title claiber teams wouldn't keep jumping at the chance to move to FBS.

Sorry to keep using Arky STate, but what you're saying kind of makes the point. You're not doing FBS to compete with Arkansas, and you're fine with that. The Sun Belt is a level of competition within Arkansas State's reach, and you're competing in it.

If the overall structure were a little bit different, the Sun Belt would be a top-notch FCS conference, but it isn't.

Realistically, Arkansas State and Arkansas aren't competing on the same level. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem with trying to separate Arkansas from Arkansas State is where the line gets drawn.

I'm going to have to agree with JohnBragg here... it's not that my argument is "Sun Belt should go FCS," it's focus and mostly "Boise" argument:

Swap-out ArkySt with Boise. Is Boise going to accept playing-patsy to the Hawgz? ...or is Boise going to end-up winning a bunch of those matchups; and potentially causing the permanent-end of that game on the Fayetteville-side?

That argument is the way that someone goes from the Sun Belt side (lest us forget, Boise entered FBS playing in the then-Big West Football Conference, which- as we all admit was WORSE than today's Sun Belt by a fair-margin) to the "FBS Contender" side.... not an easy path, but it's likely a SBC program or two, ECU/SoMiss/Tulsa from CUSA, and Hawai'i, FresnoSt, from MWC would prefer to do more than "Draw 20k or so and exist."

Good Lawd, Don't put ECU's name anywhere near that. We haven't averaged that low since the early 1970's!

But, your point is true, we are at 50,000 want to get to 58,000 to 60,000 and kick arse. That's why we play the OOC we do. Plus, we been good enough to sign home and homes with VT, WVU, BYU, UNC, NCSU, USC-east. 20k or so and existing won't get those home and homes.

(08-07-2012 10:54 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(08-07-2012 09:50 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Until 1999 no school had the name Minnesota State.

Sure they did, Hayden Fox coached the Screaming Eagles before he took over the NFL's Orlando Breakers expansion team.

:clap2:

(08-07-2012 02:29 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  The same could be said of Division 2 basketball: nobody cares about it. I want my alma mater in Div I!!

FYI, my alma mater is the University of Montevallo, Alabama's only public liberal arts school (or at least it claims that), located about halfway between Birmingham & Montgomery. Rusty Greer is probably our most famous athletic alumnus.

I used to work with someone who went there.

(08-07-2012 06:27 PM)ecumbh1999 Wrote:  Good Lawd, Don't put ECU's name anywhere near that. We haven't averaged that low since the early 1970's!

But, your point is true, we are at 50,000 want to get to 58,000 to 60,000 and kick arse. That's why we play the OOC we do. Plus, we been good enough to sign home and homes with VT, WVU, BYU, UNC, NCSU, USC-east. 20k or so and existing won't get those home and homes.

Not to take credit away from ECU as much as I've defended them but you guys have benefited from a Catch-22. You are virtually the only non-AQ team, particularly one of any stature (Georgia State may change that because of stadium size), over a large geographical area and because many teams in your area are ACC teams that can't schedule each other OOC, they have no choice but to schedule you if they want a close OOC opponent. You guys benefit from their fans travelling to you (or Charlotte) and in turn benefit from getting your alums, students and casual fans fired up.

And SEC teams not named LSU are scared to play more than 1 team with a pulse (if that) OOC plus the only one nearby is USCe, who to your credit you occasionally get.

(08-07-2012 08:59 PM)Caltex2 Wrote:  

(08-07-2012 06:27 PM)ecumbh1999 Wrote:  Good Lawd, Don't put ECU's name anywhere near that. We haven't averaged that low since the early 1970's!

But, your point is true, we are at 50,000 want to get to 58,000 to 60,000 and kick arse. That's why we play the OOC we do. Plus, we been good enough to sign home and homes with VT, WVU, BYU, UNC, NCSU, USC-east. 20k or so and existing won't get those home and homes.

Not to take credit away from ECU as much as I've defended them but you guys have benefited from a Catch-22. You are virtually the only non-AQ team, particularly one of any stature (Georgia State may change that because of stadium size), over a large geographical area and because many teams in your area are ACC teams that can't schedule each other OOC, they have no choice but to schedule you if they want a close OOC opponent. You guys benefit from their fans travelling to you (or Charlotte) and in turn benefit from getting your alums, students and casual fans fired up.

And SEC teams not named LSU are scared to play more than 1 team with a pulse (if that) OOC plus the only one nearby is USCe, who to your credit you occasionally get.

You're excluding SEC teams, you're excluding power-conference teams that are far away. ECU is close to the Tobacco Road schools, but within a 10-hour drive you also have Navy, West Virginia, Penn State, Louisville and Pitt, plus Cincinatti, Temple, Rutgers and Marshall.

(08-07-2012 04:38 AM)BadWillHunting Wrote:  

(08-03-2012 01:34 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-03-2012 01:12 PM)Crump1 Wrote:  Leave us out of your examples. We are very happy drawing 20K+ to games and being on national TV a half dozen times. Also, you can make snide remarks about the bowls YOU don't care about but they are no less meaningful than the bowl games between the also-rans in the larger conferences.

The more the merrier and if it wasn't a great idead then national title claiber teams wouldn't keep jumping at the chance to move to FBS.

Sorry to keep using Arky STate, but what you're saying kind of makes the point. You're not doing FBS to compete with Arkansas, and you're fine with that. The Sun Belt is a level of competition within Arkansas State's reach, and you're competing in it.

If the overall structure were a little bit different, the Sun Belt would be a top-notch FCS conference, but it isn't.

Realistically, Arkansas State and Arkansas aren't competing on the same level. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem with trying to separate Arkansas from Arkansas State is where the line gets drawn.

Swap-out ArkySt with Boise. Is Boise going to accept playing-patsy to the Hawgz? ...or is Boise going to end-up winning a bunch of those matchups; and potentially causing the permanent-end of that game on the Fayetteville-side?

Arkansas does not schedule in-state schools.

The two have never met in football.

You should make Arkansas play you.

The University of West Georgia wants to move up.

http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-georgia-spo...-i-status/

(08-07-2012 08:59 PM)Caltex2 Wrote:  

(08-07-2012 06:27 PM)ecumbh1999 Wrote:  Good Lawd, Don't put ECU's name anywhere near that. We haven't averaged that low since the early 1970's!

But, your point is true, we are at 50,000 want to get to 58,000 to 60,000 and kick arse. That's why we play the OOC we do. Plus, we been good enough to sign home and homes with VT, WVU, BYU, UNC, NCSU, USC-east. 20k or so and existing won't get those home and homes.

Not to take credit away from ECU as much as I've defended them but you guys have benefited from a Catch-22. You are virtually the only non-AQ team, particularly one of any stature (Georgia State may change that because of stadium size), over a large geographical area and because many teams in your area are ACC teams that can't schedule each other OOC, they have no choice but to schedule you if they want a close OOC opponent. You guys benefit from their fans travelling to you (or Charlotte) and in turn benefit from getting your alums, students and casual fans fired up.

And SEC teams not named LSU are scared to play more than 1 team with a pulse (if that) OOC plus the only one nearby is USCe, who to your credit you occasionally get.

I'm not going to say those things aren't true, but we reached the point fan base wise we have in large part because we have been playing football at the highest level for a long time and long ago decided to market ourselves as the only football first school in the state of NC. That's what makes our situation so much different that every other non-AQ school. While it appears we have a ton of local competition from the ACC schools for years they have had an overall apathy towards football which allowed us to carve out a niche in the state that really no other southern non-AQ school has come close to matching. Every other state in the south have huge football powers that suck all the air out of the state and draw nearly all of the casual football fans. We don't have that in NC. Circumstances years ago allowed us to build a fan base like this. I look at Memphis basketball's fan base much the same. Surrounded by a bunch of huge power football programs with very apathetic basketball programs, allowing them to carve out a niche as the basketball first program in the area.

i think you can add another reason why FCS schools want to move up. look at ESPN page and the sub headline about the honey badger-says that college football has lost a great talent, but it hasn't because he will be playing more than likely at a FCS school--McNeese State. There is a lot of arrogance with ESPN when it comes to FBS vs FCS. But yet finds a way to make poker and high school football and basketball a bigger sport than FCS football.

I find it interesting that ESPiN has spent more ink in the last 24 hours on somebody who won't even be playing FBS football than they've spent so far on some BCS contenders during the entire summer...

(08-10-2012 09:11 PM)jmufan Wrote:  There is a lot of arrogance with ESPN when it comes to FBS vs FCS. But yet finds a way to make poker and high school football and basketball a bigger sport than FCS football.

ESPN isn't intentionally trying to keep FCS down. They are out to make money and if Pro Hopscotch drew large numbers of fans and made them lots of money, that's what they would broadcast. If there really was bigger money to be made in showing FCS football than Poker, then they would broadcast that instead.