FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[AO]

Lost in the SVP SportCenter piece was the brilliant mispronunciation of St Olaf as the dopey snowman from Frozen. Likely unintentional, but quite funny nevertheless.

I was more stunned when he called them the "Oals" when listing off the nicknames.  Maybe he thought it was like adding an s to the Ole in "Ole Miss".

wait, it's not? Is it pronounced Oh-lees? or Ollies like Ollie North? How do you pronounce St. Olaf?

Help out this visiting Noo Yawka please.

OH-Leez
I suppose Sven and Ole jokes don't often make it East of Chicago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clPlfmiO1rY

[miac952]

This PTI segment should awake Oz from the dead. Jump to 8:36

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG2wXYS0Mvw

[DuffMan]

or Ollies like Ollie North?

That's my son's name, and in MN, he frequently gets called Ole (like the St. Olaf Oles).  He's shy, so we're still trying to get him to correct people. 

['95 Blugold]

I think the place were UST benefits the conference the best is in Men's Hockey and bring the membership up to where the Conference Champion gets the automatic bid. There was a few years back, when my Blugolds upset Point in the Conference Tournament, but lost out on the at-large bid to Point.

Stevens Point should vote against bringing in the Tommies then.  They want to get in the national championship based upon their better regular season rather than missing out due to one game in the conference tournament.

UWSP or whoever would be the #1 seed going into the tournament I don't think would be in danger of losing a Pool C bid. The team that is missing out is the tournament champ who isn't the #1 seed that isn't getting in over the regular season champ.

I wonder how it would play out football wise with UST in the WIAC. With the gauntlet that schedule would be I don't see a second place team with less than 2 losses. Obviously, being a Blugold, I don't have to worry about the post season, but how many Pool C bids go to 2 loss teams?

[jamtod]

This PTI segment should awake Oz from the dead. Jump to 8:36

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG2wXYS0Mvw

Oh boy.
"This is a millennial decision"
Uhhh.. no. It's not.

[Mr.MIAC]

Let's say UST attracts some major donors to fund its athletic endeavors, gets the NCAA to waive the DII requirement, and makes a move to DI (FCS) in two years. Minnesota now has two DI football programs, the media coverage is huge, and plenty of Minnesotans are happy.

Would a DI UST draw fans away from the Gophers? If UST is successful in DI, would that diminish public interest in the Gophers?

Would it draw fans away from the MIAC? If SJ2 returns to form and dominates the MIAC, will they garner much attention outside the current fanbase?

[gbpuckfan]

Let's say UST attracts some major donors to fund its athletic endeavors, gets the NCAA to waive the DII requirement, and makes a move to DI (FCS) in two years. Minnesota now has two DI football programs, the media coverage is huge, and plenty of Minnesotans are happy.

Would a DI UST draw fans away from the Gophers? If UST is successful in DI, would that diminish public interest in the Gophers?

Would it draw fans away from the MIAC? If SJ2 returns to form and dominates the MIAC, will they garner much attention outside the current fanbase?

My $.02

The Pioneer or Missouri Valley or whatever conference still isn't the B1G, even if it is Division 1. And it's still not the U, even as mediocre as the Gophers have been in football. I doubt there would be much impact - but would be clamoring for the two to play.

A move would lower interest in the MIAC by the sheer nature of the departure.

And, methinks they stay D3 and join the WIAC...

[miac952]

Let's say UST attracts some major donors to fund its athletic endeavors, gets the NCAA to waive the DII requirement, and makes a move to DI (FCS) in two years. Minnesota now has two DI football programs, the media coverage is huge, and plenty of Minnesotans are happy.

Would a DI UST draw fans away from the Gophers? If UST is successful in DI, would that diminish public interest in the Gophers?

Would it draw fans away from the MIAC? If SJ2 returns to form and dominates the MIAC, will they garner much attention outside the current fanbase?

I can't think of an exact comparable off the top of my head where a smaller, private D1 institution shares the same metropolitan are as a large D1 Power 5 school. Marquette, Creighton, SLU, and Butler are close to big D1's but not in the same cities. Northwestern shares Chicago with DePaul and Loyola. But Chicago is huge and every B1G school plus Notre Dame has a slice of Chicago as well. Philly is split many different directions. My thoughts are that if the product is good they will succeed with fans and attendance. MSP is a fickle market. See the Gophers for that example. It's not like Lincoln and Omaha where there is blind loyalty regardless of on field struggles.

[jamtod]

Let's say UST attracts some major donors to fund its athletic endeavors, gets the NCAA to waive the DII requirement, and makes a move to DI (FCS) in two years. Minnesota now has two DI football programs, the media coverage is huge, and plenty of Minnesotans are happy.

Would a DI UST draw fans away from the Gophers? If UST is successful in DI, would that diminish public interest in the Gophers?

Would it draw fans away from the MIAC? If SJ2 returns to form and dominates the MIAC, will they garner much attention outside the current fanbase?

An FCS UST isn't drawing fans away from the Gophers. You might have some UST alums that forgot the school existed that come back and remember it. It's going to take a long time and a lot of success for UST to become a significant draw and have any impact on the Gophers.

I don't think there is a significant "MIAC" fanbase. You have fanbases of individual schools, and UST has been near the top of the conference in terms of alumni interest (behind SJU and Concordia for attendance typically), so that's going to have an impact.
Nobody outside of the folks that have followed SJ2 for years is going to care if they continue to dominate. The local media isn't going to spend a ton of time on them either. St Cloud will, but most of the local media centered around Tommie-Johnnie anyway.

[formerd3db]

hazzben and colleagues:

I have been following this very interesting (and passionate) discussion, and, although I initially thought to avoid contributing any posts, I changed my mind. It appears to me from what all of you have shared, there are other underlying deep rooted, longstanding issues for the change, although in simply reading the officially released information from the conference and UST, that suggests the reason is the "too competitive" aspect that many of have described it. Obviously, I know little about the political history and/or current situation in that regard about the conference-certainly all of you are well-informed on that. Yet, if the latter reason I mentioned is the true underlying reason for the change, I have to agree with those of you who think that is simply wrong- IMO, that would be/is very misguided. Come on, I mean if that is the situation, then in the same vein, our MIAA should have kicked out Albion back in the 1990s when they were kicking the rest of our arses😀 (actually dismantling the rest of us) in football and winning all those football championships including the National Championship (a couple of others have suggested that should have happened before in other confetences as well to use a comparison for that argument.) Of course, I believe that to be absurd.

Anyway, hazzben, I have always respected and enjoyed your posts over the years, although I was confused somewhat about your one post! Perhaps I misinterpreted it, and that was the reply to TexasOle about pulling away the other good teams from the conference and thus dismantling it more. I took that initial post as only suggesting what I stated above in that...using the suggested reason of "too competitive" as the reason for asking UST to leave, ...but rather that was suggesting then why would that reason not apply to the other 1-2 (currently) really good programs in the conference? If they ask that of one, it would not be fair to apply it to others and, therefore would suggest/support the notion of accepting mediocraty or maintaining mediocraty in the other football programs, i.e. having them maintain the status quo and not trying to improve to the next level in competition, including at the national level. Of course, we all know these things are cyclic over the decades regarding which programs rise up to dominate for a while.

My apologies if I misinterpreted your reply. Just curious as to your ( and others) further thoughts/clarification. Thanks.

(Edited to try and correct spelling typos and "fat finger syndrome."😀

[hazzben]

Let's say UST attracts some major donors to fund its athletic endeavors, gets the NCAA to waive the DII requirement, and makes a move to DI (FCS) in two years. Minnesota now has two DI football programs, the media coverage is huge, and plenty of Minnesotans are happy.

Would a DI UST draw fans away from the Gophers? If UST is successful in DI, would that diminish public interest in the Gophers?

Would it draw fans away from the MIAC? If SJ2 returns to form and dominates the MIAC, will they garner much attention outside the current fanbase?

An FCS UST isn't drawing fans away from the Gophers. You might have some UST alums that forgot the school existed that come back and remember it. It's going to take a long time and a lot of success for UST to become a significant draw and have any impact on the Gophers.

I don't think there is a significant "MIAC" fanbase. You have fanbases of individual schools, and UST has been near the top of the conference in terms of alumni interest (behind SJU and Concordia for attendance typically), so that's going to have an impact.
Nobody outside of the folks that have followed SJ2 for years is going to care if they continue to dominate. The local media isn't going to spend a ton of time on them either. St Cloud will, but most of the local media centered around Tommie-Johnnie anyway.

Yeah, I don't see an FCS UST eating into the Gopher fanbase. FBS and B1G is another level and animal.

What would happen is that FCS UST would syphon off recruits. I could see Caruso putting a major dent in Fleck's walk-on program. A borderline B1G recruit would no longer have to go to UNI, NDSU, SDSU, UND, etc. for a scholarship. They could stay in the metro or come to a major metro, with a scholarship, and get a chance to play.

Even a D2 UST is going to affect the landscape, especially for the WIAC. UST is already recruiting hard in Wisconsin and Chicago. If they jump to D2, they are going to hunt that state even harder.

[Pat Coleman]

Rev., re-posting something that has been taken down is grounds for suspension but I'll just warn publicly instead.

Do your pot-stirring on some other platform.

[hazzben]

hazzben and colleagues:

I have been following this very interesting (and passionate) discussion, and, although I initially thought to avoid contributing any posts, I changed my mind. It appears to me from what all of you have shared, there are other underlying deep rooted, longstanding issues for the change, although in simply reading the officially released information from the conference and UST, that suggests the reason is the "too competitive" aspect that many of have described it. Obviously, I know little about the political history and/or current situation in that regard about the conference-I certainly all of you are well-informed on that. Yet, if the latter treason I mentioned is the true underlying reason for the change, I have to agree with those of you who think that is simply wrong- IMO, that would be/is very misguided. Come on, if that is the situation, I mean, the in the same vein, our MIAA should have kicked out Albion back in the 1990s when they were kicking the rest of our arses😀 ( actually dismantling the test of us) in football and winning all those football championships including the National Championship ( a couple of others have suggested that should have happened before in other confetences as well to use a comparison for that argument.) Of course, I believe that to be absurd.

Anyway, hazzben, I have always respected and enjoyed your posts over the years, although I was confused somewhat about your one post! Perhaps I misinterpreted it, and that was the reply to TexasOle about pulling away the other good teams from the conference and thus dismantling it more. I took that initial post as only suggesting what I stated above in that...using the suggested reason of "too competitive" as the reason for asking UST to leave, ...but rather that was suggesting then why would that reason not apply to the other 1-2 (currently) really good programs in the conference? If they ask that of one, it would not be fair to apply it to others and, therefore would suggest/support the notion of accepting mediocraty or maintaining mediocraty in the other football programs, i.e. having them maintain the status quo and not trying to improve to the next level in competition, including at the national level. Of course, we all know these things are cyclic over the decades regarding which programs rise up to dominate for a while.

My apologies if I misinterpreted your reply. Just curious as to your ( and orhets) further thoughts/clarification. Thanks.

Hey formerd3db, I'll try to respond. But it was a little tricky following your question. I'm assuming you're writing this between rounds or something. 

There was a lot of conjecture that this went deeper than football, Caruso, on field dominance, etc. That it was related to enrollment, tuition dollars, and what have you.

Bottom line, IMO, is that those issues are real for several schools, but are unrelated to tossing UST. The MIAC's own statements, and the conversations that have happened in private, and comments by BU's Assistant AD (see link above), is that at the end of the day it really boiled down to UST being too good, in too many sports, for too long. And Caruso not being Minnesota-nice about his beatdowns. (I'm no Caruso apologist. Karma played a roll in this.)

But the schools and Presidents driving this thing were really just sick of losing. And then having their faces rubbed in it by Caruso (people can debate if that was really happening, but 97-0 wasn't an accident). They were just sick of trying to beat UST, and instead of going the route of trying to compete and get better, ala SJU, Concordia, Bethel, (and even GAC), they just threw in the towel.

Pardon the Interruption made the point it was like a classic "I'm taking my ball and going home." But that's not what happened. That's what Mac did 18 years ago. This was, "you're too good for us, you're not allowed to play on the neighborhood basketball court anymore!" To use a NW Iowa analogy you'll appreciate. No one kicked Northwestern out of the conference when they were "too good" in the Bub Korver era. The University of Sioux Falls (then Sioux Falls College) was Hamline level terrible. They chose to get better. More recently, Dordt was horrible when their program started, but chose to compete with Morningside and NWC and they've started to slowly close the gap.

My reaction to Texas Ole was just that we need to stop the craziness. UST didn't want to leave, they were forced out. The follow up response to this debacle shouldn't be to now consider who else should go. Or who else should/might consider leaving (which was Texas Ole's point). UST doesn't have good options in front of them. But at least D2 and D1 are financial possibilities for them. Bethel has zero desire to leave. And would not have the resources to go D2. It's also a terrible move in terms of travel to join a league like the WIAC (who may not even want them).

Bethel's only option (and probably SJU to a lesser extent), is to stay in a now diminished MIAC. On the one hand, the path to an auto bid in football, basketball, and baseball just got easier. But the margin for error when it comes to an at large bid also just got razor thin. 

[Mr.MIAC]

If UST goes DII or DI, it will need to expand its fanbase. Who are these new fans? Are they Catholics? If so, will we see the fanbases at other Catholic schools in the region, those schools competing in a lower division, also supporting UST?

[ScoutTeamTommie2]

Let's say UST attracts some major donors to fund its athletic endeavors, gets the NCAA to waive the DII requirement, and makes a move to DI (FCS) in two years. Minnesota now has two DI football programs, the media coverage is huge, and plenty of Minnesotans are happy.

Would a DI UST draw fans away from the Gophers? If UST is successful in DI, would that diminish public interest in the Gophers?

Would it draw fans away from the MIAC? If SJ2 returns to form and dominates the MIAC, will they garner much attention outside the current fanbase?

I was around here quite a bit about a decade as ScoutTeamTommie - time has removed all memory of that login or email, so here I am!

To me, the UST -> Division I has always been and will always be fantasy for one reason alone, that reason being the athletic facilities. Even if they were somehow able to turn O'Shaughnessy Stadium into a 20,000+ seat facility, they would still have to go through massive renovations on  literally every single sports facility on campus to get them to a DI level. Even if the money was there, the land just isn't. I'm personally hoping for UST to join the WIAC so we can at least keep Tommie-Johnnie going.