Are you happy with your current conference?

[rabidrabbit]

SDSU campus/Coughlin Stadium are about 1 hr up I-29 from Sioux Falls airport.

[Col Hogan]

NAU is one of the most remote college campuses anywhere. Not only is it at a very high altitude, but it is perched in an area where winter weather can become rather interesting very quickly. In the warmer months it is VERY hard to get into that airport (and be able to takeoff again), and in the winter months you have blizzards on that mountain pass that can make things very interesting (I saw that firsthand on a spring break trip). While I like NAU in the BSC, I imagine the coaches don't like travelling there very much.

First, welcome to CS FTG...hope you stick around...

I've looked at a map of all the FCS schools and am always amazed how western schools manage workable conferences...I don't have the map here, but if you draw a line north-south through the country with 50% of FCS schools on each side of the line, that line runs through eastern Ohio (if I remember correctly). I'll post it tonight when I get home...

Anyway, when it comes to travel budgets...OOC schedules...etc...I can see that west of the Mississippi can be very difficult and expensive... (Unless you are NDSU and never travel for OOC...per MplsBison )

Here's the map I mentioned earlier...

[dbackjon]

that is why I could not believe the Big Sky presidents did not admit the two Dakota schools. Fargo is not hard to get to and I am not sure about Brookings but nothing is more difficult to get to than Flagstaff. Fly to Phoenix and bus 2 hours....

Fargo is one hundred miles closer to Statesboro, GA than to Flagstaff or Sacramento. While a football trip every year to the Dakotas was doable, all the other sports would be astronomical. Fargo is as close to Missoula as Flagstaff is (about 1,000 miles, driving). And yes, Flag is a pain to get into for Football teams. But for Montana, the bonus is that the thousands of alum in Phoenix get to see games close

[SuperHornet]

Isn't it quicker to get to Flagstaff from Lost Wages?

[dbackjon]

Isn't it quicker to get to Flagstaff from Lost Wages?

Nope - 4 plus hours from Vegas driving.

[FTG06']

Isn't it quicker to get to Flagstaff from Lost Wages?

Nope - 4 plus hours from Vegas driving.

I know that anytime MSU flies down there they take a jet to Phoenix and then bus back up to Flagstaff for the game.

[GOKATS]

Nope - 4 plus hours from Vegas driving.

I know that anytime MSU flies down there they take a jet to Phoenix and then bus back up to Flagstaff for the game.

I flew down with the FB team on a charter (mid-late 90's). We flew in to Flagstaff, but couldn't take off due to the altitude, bussed down to Phoenix after the (night) game and caught the flight back to Bozeman, got in about 5-6:00 a.m.

[skinny_uncle]

The Gateway has now become the



I'm not sure how I feel about this.

[AppMan]

NO! Too much disparaity among schools and too many schools who do not play football. With over 15,000 students ASU & GSU each have larger enrollments than Citadel, Elon, Furman, Samford, & Wofford combined. WCU & UTC each come in around 9,000.

Wofford at 1250, The Citadel 1900, Furman 2600, Samford 2860, and Elon 5300.

[BlackFalkin]

Let me break it dow for yall. i played for ewu untill(2007) and trust me when i tell you that the first thing that the big sky needs to do is boost its football facilities. (w/ the exception of Montana).

Montana - with their stadium at 23,000 and adding a upper deck this 2008 season are good as far as facilities. very loyal fan support also, damn jumbotron is from time square. very nice.

Eastern -My School- just finished a renovation two years ago that gave the field a nice pressbox, lockeroom and entrance. Its a very comfortable stadium, however they need to add more seating on the visitor side at least 5,000 and remove the track and lower the field, which will allow for more seats also. it also rains alot and the natural grass gets bad bc they let highschool teams play there sometimes on a friday b4 the game. the max seating capacity, w/ seats adding for speacial occasion aka montana games is 12,000. all right but not great by far.

Portland st. the need a REAL *FOOTBALL* stadium, they play in a renovated baseball field with no opposing side. it doesnt really feel like ur in a stadium. basically u dont get the COLLEGE football "feel". on top of that, the surface is the old school astro turf! it sucks. the capacity is about 20,000 which would be very nice if it werent a baseball/ football field.

Sacramento state- very nice stadium, seats about 18-19,000 MAX, they have one of those blow up tunnels, but the cant fill the damn thing, everytime we played their they only had about 5,000 at most. they have lots of students at the school just not much support. They also need to remove the track, which is sometimes used for olympic trial meets.

Montana State- their stadium seats about 15,000 and they do a good job filling it. they have a "ok" press box but enough seating for the "college football" feel. they are currently expanding the stadium as we speak. the one bad thing however is the natural grass. alot lke eastern washington, it gets very cold and wet late in the season and the natural turf has a hard time holding up.

Idaho state - dome seats about 12,000 in a layout similar to idaho's kibbie dome. very tuff turf. i mean its not astro turf, its something else bc there are artificial little "blades of grass" but man it hurts to slide on that thing. idaho state's capacity is fixed at 12,000 so for expansion its gonna be very hard bc the dome is more of a fixed object. the kibbie dome is under renovation, there lowering the field for more seats along with other things, they were gonna add a 2nd deck which would have just about doubled the capacity but the plann was rejected. isu's dome is hard to win in bc of the good fan support and the echoing dome, however it needs better playing surface, more seating, at least 18,000.


NAU- dome is similar to idaho states, but is more up-to-date, and has a nice size screen, the capacity is about 17,000 and they do an good job of filling it. however soon - if they expand later- they will runb into the same prob as idaho and idaho st.



weber state - ver nice field, has a great 3 story press box, and newly renovated with jumbotron, and seats about 17,000. this stadium would be absolutley great IF;
1 they take away the track, back in the day that was a good idea but now it takes away from the feel, any college football player would agree.
2 enclose the stadium, it open on both sides, so the noise isnt a big factor and takes away from the 12th man,
3 they have a hard time filling it, maybe about 6 thousand on average.

Northern Colorado - save these guys for last! okay here we go, i know u just came from d-2 but COME ON, theyre needs to be more seating and all around stadium design. you can tell this was a d-2 stadium and im sure in the years to come, they will fix it up, but damn! the lockerroom is about 200 yards from the field so u get dressed the walk over to the field, x the track. it had about 5,000 capacity. and they fill it to about 4,000. good for a d-2 not for fcs.

Things to know, the college football feel is why 1-aa players love to play 1-a teams bc of the stadium and competition, u get beat up but your at a nice stadium. take a lesson from montana, the absence of a track brings the fans closer, = louder. the crowd helps in momentum and there for it helps the team, there a corillation between the dedication the school puts towards a nice stadium and the amount of wins the team gets. more fan base also brings in more money and its aupward spiral in most cases.

big sky stadium rankings; ( taking everything into consideration including design and fan base)
1-Montana - Washington Grizzley Stadium
2-Montana State - Martel Field
3-Eastern Washington -Woodward Field
4-Weber State - Stewart Stadium
5-Portland State - PGE park
6-Northern Arizona - Walkup Skydome
7-Sacramento State - Hornet Stadium
8-Idaho State - Holt Arena
9-Northern Colorado - Nottingham Field

the conference rankins are almost exactly the same.

THE CONFERENCE- the dakotas are out, they are too far, cal poly and uc davis play the big sky team so often we pretty much see them as in the comf already. they dont have that many members in their conf so they schedule the big sky games every year any way. As it turns out, the 2 teams are on the same athletic level as the big sky schools athletically and facilitiy-wise also.

UC Davis - Aggie Stadium, build in 2007 brand new 10,000 with plans to expand to 30,000 in the future.
Cal poly - Alex Spanos Stadium renovated in 2008, 12,000 seats max, with plans to expand to 20,000 in the future.

The big sky conf had been 8 teams deep for a while so it doesnt feel right with nor col making it 9 teams. nor col also has a long way to go before they will be strong enough to win the bsc. montana has won outright or shared the title in 11 of last 14 years. nor col aint close to that and its only right to bring in suu, cal poly, and uc davis. and do the coastal/ mountain thing. i hate that the big sky brought in nor col bc they made the conf un even at 9. but since they did, they might as well expand in to 12 bc that ould make it even more of an elite conference. after that they should LOCK IT. like the pack ten. nobody comes in , nobody comes out. then it would be perfect.

Last but no least The big sky should impose a minimum PERMANENT stadium capacity at least 18,000. and then place goals for the schools to meet. example 70% full on average in the season. there shouldnt be any large penalties but something just to make the teams get off their butt and increase the attendance.


those are my thoughts i wanna know what u guys think.

Go Eags!