(07-10-2017 10:40 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  There was talk amongst the NCC presidents about moving up as a unit. I can not recall to a certainty that these talks happened before or after N Colorado made its move ... but would think before. It may have even been N Colo that tried to get the ball rolling. After all, they won DII football national titles in the mid 90's.

But most of the schools were not interested or perhaps just couldn't make the numbers work. NDSU and SDSU were the first to "get serious" after N Colorado left, then followed by UND and USD.

That led the Minnesota schools and Augie to get swallowed by the NSIC, where they remain, while I believe Omaha went to the MIAA for a brief time before deciding to drop football and go DI itself.

The move-up the whole NCC was blocked by the Minnesota schools, who wouldn't do it. Don't think Omaha and Augie at the time we're in favor of it either. Rule changes around 2000 didn't allow a whole conference to move up, like the Big South, Mid-Con and Transamerica conferences did earlier. Recognize that some of those weren't DII conferences, but just an amalgation of DII's that wanted a higher profile. The Dakota schools couldn't get enough numbers to go DI as a conference. DI was weary of that happening again, so they changed the rules by not allowing new transitioning conferences to form.