All things D2 and D3 football 2022

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IceBoxGopher said:
Yeah MSUM enrollment has dropped from when I went there, too. The enrollment was around 8,000 when I started in 2009, now it's closer to 5,000.

I think the school was stable though thanks to President Blackhurst's tenure, fundraising was good, athletics had some success. When it comes to Concordia, it's probably up in the air, but now that Upper Iowa is out it might free up a non-con game space so MSUM could potentially play the Cobbers again regardless.

I doubt Morris would move back up. They really took a hit in D2.


I feel like it's still a really big jump for Mankato. As Disco mentioned, it's a lot of money and the stadium needs a replacement.
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The one thing that apparently has helped Moorhead is they have a pretty good graduate program now. The crazy thing is for a period of 2-3 years when I was there, MSU had a higher enrollment than NDSU.

I have to think the city itself hurts both schools. As big and generally nice as Fargo has grown, Moorhead is a really run down city outside of the two campuses (which are both pretty nice). It was never the greatest town, but it's definitely worse now.
 

the issue for the NSIC - especially in football, is scheduling. with 16 teams, they have been playing a full all-conference schedule.

with 15 teams, they would either have to have byes or some teams would have to play non-conference games.

I follow a sportswriter from Mankato on Twitter. He noted that UW-Parkside does not play football, so that does nothing to help the FB scheduling issue.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
the issue for the NSIC - especially in football, is scheduling. with 16 teams, they have been playing a full all-conference schedule.

with 15 teams, they would either have to have byes or some teams would have to play non-conference games.

I follow a sportswriter from Mankato on Twitter. He noted that UW-Parkside does not play football, so that does nothing to help the FB scheduling issue.
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13 football teams is still a big conference (after UIU leaves). To your point, they will need to add a bye week and divisions will be unbalanced if they keep them. No new football school will be joining by next fall.
 

disco said:
Agreed. They could easily be D1 and FCS. At this point, they are to the NSIC as UST was to the MIAC. A major regional university.

The issue as always, is money.
They also desperately need a new stadium. Blakeslee is almost 60 years old, is worse than many high school stadiums, and is in very poor shape. They've had trouble getting that project funded.
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The issue to me is football.

Without football holding them back, Omaha was able to make the move from NCC to Summit.

That's the same kind of move I could see for Duluth, St Cloud, and/or Mankato. I don't know how Duluth feels about football, but I think that would be a tougher move for Mankato now that they've had success in the DII world that no longer includes the Dakota schools.
 

disco said:
The one thing that apparently has helped Moorhead is they have a pretty good graduate program now. The crazy thing is for a period of 2-3 years when I was there, MSU had a higher enrollment than NDSU.

I have to think the city itself hurts both schools. As big and generally nice as Fargo has grown, Moorhead is a really run down city outside of the two campuses (which are both pretty nice). It was never the greatest town, but it's definitely worse now.
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Huh? Moorhead is a bedroom community. Lots of new-er houses. Like south Fargo. I think?
 


Gophers_4life said:
Huh? Moorhead is a bedroom community. Lots of new-er houses. Like south Fargo. I think?
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South of 94 there are some newer homes, but a lot of those are now 20 years old at this point and weren't great construction to begin with (a friend of mine lived in one before his divorce).

I think there's some nicer areas around the golf course on the east side - some of that may technically be Dilworth. My cousin lived there until they moved to West Fargo. A lot of the really nice homes by the Country Club had to be removed because of flooding.

The area just south of MSUM is especially bad. It got so bad at one point they had to put in a police substation in an apartment building because of gang activity.

The downtown is an absolute wasteland. Probably the worst example of urban renewal in the state, when they tore down blocks of businesses and built that mall. It is to Fargo as Superior is to Duluth, except there are still some decent places in downtown Superior.
 

Fargo can't hold a candle to Duluth, sorry. St Cloud is a much fairer comparison.

So Moorhead is like, Waite Park.
 






AO54 said:
Fargo downtown is actually pretty nice. Just lacks the big lake.
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It's fine. St Cloud doesn't have a bad downtown either, though I haven't been in a while.

Neither can hold a candle to Duluth. I'm including Canal Park.
 

Gophers_4life said:
It's fine. St Cloud doesn't have a bad downtown either, though I haven't been in a while.

Neither can hold a candle to Duluth. I'm including Canal Park.
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I'm thinking you haven't been to Fargo lately, they've had a lot of construction in the last few years. I'd rather go to Duluth but it's 100% because of the lake.
 

OK. Correct I haven't been to Fargo downtown in a few years, but again it's just a flat as a pancake piece of land with some buildings on it. I'm sure it has some nice restaurants and bars. yay
 



I've always looked at the FM area like a flat Duluth.
  • Fargo - Duluth
  • Moorhead - Superior
  • West Fargo - Hermantown
  • Dilworth - Proctor
  • NDSU - UMD
  • MSUM - University of Wisconsin Superior
  • Concordia - St. Scholastica
  • Minnesota State Community/Technical College - Lake Superior College
  • West Acres Mall - Miller Hill Mall
  • West Acres Cinema - Marcus Duluth Cinema
  • The Fargo Theatre - Zinema 2
  • Fargo Downtown - Canal Park
  • Agriculture Industry - Shipping Industry
  • NDSU Football - UMD Hockey
  • Fargo Forum - Duluth News Tribune (same company)
 

Gophers_4life said:
The issue to me is football.

Without football holding them back, Omaha was able to make the move from NCC to Summit.

That's the same kind of move I could see for Duluth, St Cloud, and/or Mankato. I don't know how Duluth feels about football, but I think that would be a tougher move for Mankato now that they've had success in the DII world that no longer includes the Dakota schools.
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Towards the top of D2 for the last 10 years. Kato can handle playing football. They have played in 2 national championship games in that time period also.

It probably has more to do with the stadium/money than anything. A move in football would not scare them competition wise IMO. Heck St. Thomas had similar national success in D3 and look what they have done since the move to D1.
 

IceBoxGopher said:
I've always looked at the FM area like a flat Duluth.
  • Fargo - Duluth
  • Moorhead - Superior
  • West Fargo - Hermantown
  • Dilworth - Proctor
  • NDSU - UMD
  • MSUM - University of Wisconsin Superior
  • Concordia - St. Scholastica
  • Minnesota State Community/Technical College - Lake Superior College
  • West Acres Mall - Miller Hill Mall
  • West Acres Cinema - Marcus Duluth Cinema
  • The Fargo Theatre - Zinema 2
  • Fargo Downtown - Canal Park
  • Agriculture Industry - Shipping Industry
  • NDSU Football - UMD Hockey
  • Fargo Forum - Duluth News Tribune (same company)
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That's basically spot on. I've always looked at it pretty much the same way.
 

Gophers_4life said:
We were talking about downtown goodness.

Also, believe it or not Duluth MSA is almost 300k population.
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I looked it up. I'm shocked it's that large. Then I saw that they are including all of St. Louis, Lake, Carlton and Douglas Counties. Fargo is just Cass and Clay and is about 250,000.

If you go by DMA, Fargo is 216k, Duluth is 182k.
 

Go Gophs said:
Towards the top of D2 for the last 10 years. Kato can handle playing football. They have played in 2 national championship games in that time period also.

It probably has more to do with the stadium/money than anything. A move in football would not scare them competition wise IMO. Heck St. Thomas had similar national success in D3 and look what they have done since the move to D1.
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It's also the funding of the additional scholarships, and the equivalent women's scholarships that make it so expensive.
 

Duluth-Superior MSA is about 50K more people than Fargo-Moorhead MSA. The core city Fargo is about 40k bigger than Duluth
 

Go Gophs said:
Towards the top of D2 for the last 10 years. Kato can handle playing football. They have played in 2 national championship games in that time period also.

It probably has more to do with the stadium/money than anything. A move in football would not scare them competition wise IMO. Heck St. Thomas had similar national success in D3 and look what they have done since the move to D1.
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Bolded: that is not a valid statement. They didn't move to D1. Pioneer is D3 in everything but name.

Curb-stomped by actual, real D1 teams in the playoff.
 

disco said:
I looked it up. I'm shocked it's that large. Then I saw that they are including all of St. Louis, Lake, Carlton and Douglas Counties. Fargo is just Cass and Clay and is about 250,000.

If you go by DMA, Fargo is 216k, Duluth is 182k.
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But it's correct to include those counties, as most of their population is near Duluth.

Only exception and where I agree are the Iron Range towns in STL county. No idea why those aren't their own county, from the range up to Canadian border. I bet a lot of folks have said such a thing over the years.
 


Gophers_4life said:
Bolded: that is not a valid statement. They didn't move to D1. Pioneer is D3 in everything but name.

Curb-stomped by actual, real D1 teams in the playoff.
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The second place pioneer team (41-0) Didn’t get curb stomped any worse than Northeast Conference champs (56-17), colonial at large team (31-6).

The league has won a playoff game as recently as 2017.

Lost by 17 in 2021
35 in 2020,
14 in 2019
19 in 2018

The league is 2-4 in its last 6 first round games.

The league is definitely weaker than the rest of FCS and the bottom of the league could be beaten by the top of D3. But you undervalue it slightly.
 

AO54 said:
I'm thinking you haven't been to Fargo lately, they've had a lot of construction in the last few years. I'd rather go to Duluth but it's 100% because of the lake.
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I believe I read there has been $300 million of public and private investment in downtown fargo in the last 5-10 years. Its radically transformed.
 

Some guy said:
The second place pioneer team (41-0) Didn’t get curb stomped any worse than Northeast Conference champs (56-17), colonial at large team (31-6).

The league has won a playoff game as recently as 2017.

Lost by 17 in 2021
35 in 2020,
14 in 2019
19 in 2018

The league is 2-4 in its last 6 first round games.

The league is definitely weaker than the rest of FCS and the bottom of the league could be beaten by the top of D3. But you undervalue it slightly.
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Maybe slightly, but the implication - perhaps because of people's overall ignorance more than anything else - is that St Thomas moved up to the league that's the same thing as the MVFC.

Not even close to being close. Pioneer is a good DIII league. Losing to MVFC teams by 41-0 scores would be the standard.


NEC is a low-scholarship FCS conference. I believe they have scholarship limits in place that are around DII cap levels.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
I believe I read there has been $300 million of public and private investment in downtown fargo in the last 5-10 years. Its radically transformed.
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Sure, from like 1999. I've been there in the last 5 years. I highly doubt whatever they've done since then is going to make my jaw hit the floor. But also have no plans to visit any time soon, and doubt that's any kind of loss.
 

Gophers_4life said:
Sure, from like 1999. I've been there in the last 5 years. I highly doubt whatever they've done since then is going to make my jaw hit the floor. But also have no plans to visit any time soon, and doubt that's any kind of loss.
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Per New York Times it’s $300 million in the last 4 years. But I guess your anecdotal evidence works too!

They’ll miss your tourist dollars.
 

Gophers_4life said:
Maybe slightly, but the implication - perhaps because of people's overall ignorance more than anything else - is that St Thomas moved up to the league that's the same thing as the MVFC.

Not even close to being close. Pioneer is a good DIII league. Losing to MVFC teams by 41-0 scores would be the standard.


NEC is a low-scholarship FCS conference. I believe they have scholarship limits in place that are around DII cap levels.
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True. But what you say in your third paragraph directly disagrees with what you said in the post I’ve responded to.

Pioneer league is real d1 football.
FCS football is just different from what people perceive it to be.
 


Some guy said:
True. But what you say in your third paragraph directly disagrees with what you said in the post I’ve responded to.

Pioneer league is real d1 football.
FCS football is just different from what people perceive it to be.
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MVFC, Big Sky, and CAA -- the competitive teams in those conferences are DI. Compete with those, and I'll respect you.

Pioneer is fake DI.
 

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