• Hi Guest, want to participate in the discussions, keep track of read/unread posts and more? Create your free account and increase the benefits of your WyoNation.com experience today!

North Dakota State

OrediggerPoke said:
www.espn.com

Sources: North Dakota State joins Mountain West for football

FCS powerhouse North Dakota State has finalized an agreement to join the Mountain West Conference in football only starting in 2026, sources told ESPN.
www.espn.com www.espn.com

It’s happening, wow! $12 million is surprising too
Click to expand...
They are doing football only. The entire athletic department budget at NDSU is $30 million. UW's budget is $55 million. Good argument UW could just stay in the MWC for football move to Summit with NDSU for all other sports and save $25 million. https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/mwc
 
BigHorn said:
Before Utah State moved into the MWC conference we thought of them as being a lower level, and now they have left the MWC to enter the PAC12......Wyoming is just a speed bump on the way to higher levels for so many schools... We used to be competitive with BYU at one time, and Utah and now look where they are and we are! We once played Arizona and Arizona St. in the same conference. Now CSU has moved along with Utah State.
Click to expand...
and we would beat Arizona & A-state.

BIGHORN you are so right!
 
rocket city poke said:
They are doing football only. The entire athletic department budget at NDSU is $30 million. UW's budget is $55 million. Good argument UW could just stay in the MWC for football move to Summit with NDSU for all other sports and save $25 million. https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/mwc
Click to expand...
How does Wyoming going to the Summit help us at all?!?!? NDSU is in the summit because it can bus their olympic teams to most conference opponents. The Summit would be MORE travel (to more obscure destinations) for Wyoming.
 
Sagebrush said:
This is a cultural comedown for NDSU and not all that great for the MW. As a destination the Fargodome seats 18,700 and as for road games it's doubtful that many NDSU faithful will travel to places like El Paso, Laramie, San Jose or Colo Spgs. They lose some traditional rivals although I'm sure they'll keep their annual game vs the U. of North Dakota. The upside for the Bison is that now they can schedule a couple of higher-$$ OOC body bag games to help with revenue. And the TV revenue piece is better than what they had in FCS.

Meh all around.
Click to expand...
NDSU likely will have SDSU join them next year imo. When the Dakotas began to jump from D2 to D1, NDSU went first and SDSU followed a year later, with UND and USD coming 4 years after that. Those two schools care far too much about the Dakota marker game and it sells far too many tickets for them to leave it dormant. I could maybe see NoDak jump in 5ish years but I think they'd be more worried about hockey, and USD won't. The DakotaDome is far too small and their fanbase struggles to fill it, only one game this year over 90% filled (hell they only had 39.4% capacity filled for the FCS first round game, and that probably had decent road fan turnout since Drake aint far down the road). Dakota Marker as a MW rivalry week game would be insanely fun and I'd be here for it
 
tnkl_42 said:
NDSU likely will have SDSU join them next year imo. When the Dakotas began to jump from D2 to D1, NDSU went first and SDSU followed a year later, with UND and USD coming 4 years after that. Those two schools care far too much about the Dakota marker game and it sells far too many tickets for them to leave it dormant.
Click to expand...
Wyoming & CSewe used to feel that way as well...not sure that NDSU moving to the MWC opens any doors for SDSU quite honestly. I guess we will see in a few years, but all bets are off these days in college sports for me, I hate the direction, and the shuffle.
 
McPeachy said:
Wyoming & CSewe used to feel that way as well...not sure that NDSU moving to the MWC opens any doors for SDSU quite honestly. I guess we will see in a few years, but all bets are off these days in college sports for me, I hate the direction, and the shuffle.
Click to expand...
The shuffle has gone past me as well, I do think a big difference between the dakotas and the border war is that now it's a subdivision between. Both UW and CSU brass can claim the game is equal since both are FBS and still scheduling, now that NDSU and SDSU are in different subdivisions, the game isn't equal and maybe won't even be played. These two have met every year since 1946 so while I can see them staying apart given where everything is, I doubt SDSU will let NDSU be "above them" for too long. I say within 3 years we get SDSU in the FBS, maybe not MW but D1-A for sure
 
BigHorn said:
I am amazed as to how Tom Burman and the MWC is constantly looking for teams that we can lose to! Now that is thoughtfulness..............

Before Utah State moved into the MWC conference we thought of them as being a lower level, and now they have left the MWC to enter the PAC12......Wyoming is just a speed bump on the way to higher levels for so many schools... We used to be competitive with BYU at one time, and Utah and now look where they are and we are! We once played Arizona and Arizona St. in the same conference. Now CSU has moved along with Utah State.

I am tired of the "excellence" BS that has been spread by Tom Burman for 20 years, the only thing he has done is to take a proud strong D1 program and watch us slowly devolve into a program somewhere between a FBS and an FCS level program.....
Click to expand...
I am not at all disagreeing with your sentiment. I've been a loyal Pokes fan since 1995. We haven't been competitive with BYU since the late 1960's and Utah since 1990. That is a long time and its not fair to hang that on Burman. We haven't had a whole lot to cheer about since before TB. There's probably a lot of reasons for Wyoming being stagnant for 4 decades. Utah went from 1.4M people in 1980 to 3.6M people in 2025 (about 157% increase). Wyoming went from 469,557 in 1980 to 588,000 in 2025 (about 25%). Growth equals money. We probably align pretty well with the Dakota schools and Montana schools.

I can't think of anything negative about NDSU joining the MW. Yes, it would be cool to pick up some larger programs from surrounding states. But I like the regional aspect and I think I am good with NDSU. Wish we could pull from Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska...but we cant.
 
OrediggerPoke said:
How does Wyoming going to the Summit help us at all?!?!? NDSU is in the summit because it can bus their olympic teams to most conference opponents. The Summit would be MORE travel (to more obscure destinations) for Wyoming.
Click to expand...

Omaha, Denver, Vermillion, Kansas City, Minnieapolis, Omaha, Brookings, Grand Forks and Tulsa vs. Hawaii, San Jose, Albuquerque, Reno, Davis, Springs, El Paso. Anytime you have Hawaii in your league it's costing like double a regular school. The travel looks like a wash. Also football is the driver of all of this so just play with FBS in football. Then you you drop a couple needless sports as well. Just saying how is North Dakota State able to spend $30 million (probably like $35 with the move to MWC) and get their results. Even their basketball team is 20-6 this year. UW is spending $55 million with MUCH worse results.
 
Last edited:
Midwest Cowboy said:
I am not at all disagreeing with your sentiment. I've been a loyal Pokes fan since 1995. We haven't been competitive with BYU since the late 1960's and Utah since 1990. That is a long time and its not fair to hang that on Burman. We haven't had a whole lot to cheer about since before TB. There's probably a lot of reasons for Wyoming being stagnant for 4 decades. Utah went from 1.4M people in 1980 to 3.6M people in 2025 (about 157% increase). Wyoming went from 469,557 in 1980 to 588,000 in 2025 (about 25%). Growth equals money. We probably align pretty well with the Dakota schools and Montana schools.

I can't think of anything negative about NDSU joining the MW. Yes, it would be cool to pick up some larger programs from surrounding states. But I like the regional aspect and I think I am good with NDSU. Wish we could pull from Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska...but we cant.
Click to expand...
I would argue that we were competitive with BYU and Utah up to about 2004. That is when Burman took over. In football and basketball. Take a look at the scores up to that point. In the 90's we beat Utah more than we lost to them in football. Even in 2001 and 2002 we played BYU to a 1 score game in football and then beat them in 2003. I know there are outside factors that play a role in our decent but the leadership in charge put us on a speeding train downward in my opinion. Lack of vision and no other objective other than build buildings is the main cause.
 
Midwest Cowboy said:
I am not at all disagreeing with your sentiment. I've been a loyal Pokes fan since 1995. We haven't been competitive with BYU since the late 1960's and Utah since 1990. That is a long time and its not fair to hang that on Burman. We haven't had a whole lot to cheer about since before TB. There's probably a lot of reasons for Wyoming being stagnant for 4 decades. Utah went from 1.4M people in 1980 to 3.6M people in 2025 (about 157% increase). Wyoming went from 469,557 in 1980 to 588,000 in 2025 (about 25%). Growth equals money. We probably align pretty well with the Dakota schools and Montana schools.

I can't think of anything negative about NDSU joining the MW. Yes, it would be cool to pick up some larger programs from surrounding states. But I like the regional aspect and I think I am good with NDSU. Wish we could pull from Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska...but we cant.
Click to expand...
I appreciate what you are saying. I have lived through some really poor AD's, Lee Moon comes to the forefront on that one. When Burman was hired it was because he was a Wyoming guy and loved the state and wouldn't have moved on....well we got what we asked for.

I started being a staunch Wyoming fan back in 1976 and have lived through some good ones, but way too many mediocre years. I truly understand the population issue. Throughout my career I have lived overseas and in some big metropolis areas, but I came home to retire to, and part of my wish was to support UW and see us finally take home a football championship, late 80's is a long time ago.

I guess, what really irks me is how I see other schools come into the conference and then jettison out and leave us behind. If it were simply because of population, that would be one thing, but we constantly land in the upper half of the conference in attendance! Other AD's take chances with stadiums and things like that so as to set themselves up for being possibly attractive schools for other conferences. Tom Burman has some financial constraints that are put on him by the state legislature, but I can't help but think that if we had had an AD who actually looked down the road and tried every way possible to positions us for expansion instead of a safe bet who won't leave's and balances the books and most of all went out and actually did some homework in hiring instead of hiring the safe guy, we would have been in a better position. 20 years and never having brought even one football conference championship is on the downward side of sad, some would rate it pathetic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top