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.
Coastal ..............................................................Mountain
1. Portland State................................................... 1. Montana
2. Sacramento State ...............................................2. Montana State
3. Cal Poly ...........................................................3. Northern Colorado
4. UC Davis ..........................................................4. Weber State
5. Eastern Washington .............................................5. Southern Utah
6. Northern Arizona .................................................6. Idaho State
Last but no least The big sky should impose a minimum PERMANENT stadium capacity about 18,000. Give the team about 2 or 3 years to accomplish this, and then place goals for the schools to meet. example 65% -70% full on average in the season. there shouldnt be any large penalties but something just to make the Athletic Director/school/cheerleaders get off their butt and advertise & therfore increase the attendance. This would increase income for the school, as well as school prestige and recruiting. Making for better schools and a better conference.
those are my thoughts i wanna know what u guys think.
Go Eags!
