Will Maturi now schedule the University of North Dakota "Flickertails"

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UND Prairie Dogs would be the most fitting

As much as I hate UND, I feel for them, I would hate to have the same thing happen to my my favorite teams nickname
 

How about dumping the Fighting Irish...the Scotsman
 





Yea, that is too bad. I'm not Native American, but I thought their mascot, along with Florida State Seminoles, was pretty cool looking and dignified (especially compared to the Cleveland Indians mascot).
 

Goldmember said:
Wow.

UND @ TCF in 2012 looks likely.
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certainly hope not. and not if they want any gopher fans to care about such a game. und in football? no thanks! i am so tired of this b.s. of playing ndsu, usd, sdsu, und. give me a non-conf game i can actually get excited about and care about. it is not the u of m's job to schedule non-conf games that excite the entire state of dakota rather it is their job to schedule non-conf games that are appealing to the majority of gopher fans and minnesotans. i certainly hope that joel maturi eventually takes coach brewster's lead on this and figures that out as well.

screw the gene taylors (ndsu ad) of the world who seem to get all bent out of shape if it looks like they will not be able to have minnesota on their schedules. go play nebraska, iowa, washington state, kansas state, kansas, wisconsin or something. let them use up non-conf spots for once. it isn't minnesota's job to do these dakota schools this many favors when it comes to non-conf scheduling. let them fail or succeed when it comes to moving to D1 on their own merits.

other than maybe some gopher fans who grew up in or near the dakotas the majority of people don't really give a sh!t when play these schools to the west. they are rather lame and do nothing to advance the u of m athletic department & teams.
 

Bronko you better hope

a certain South Dakota native does not read that post.
 



Every D1-FBS team that regularly has seven home games plays one D1-FCS school. That's the only way to get to seven. Plus, they work well becuase they can easily shuffle their schedule and play when you need them to.

I don't think Minnesota has any reson to pick one of the four Dakotas as a "rival" and schedule them every year as Bohl wanted us to do with NDSU. But I do think the 4 Dakotas make particularly good opponents for the FCS slot. Not becuase they are interesting opponents, but becuase virtually any other FCS opponents are totally uninteresting. There is something to be said for the large number of locals they have on their teams and how it generates interest in what would otherwise be a throw-away game.

The Dakotas do need to make sure they play other FBS schools in the years they don't go to Minnesota... especially other schools in the area, otherwise they should be pulled out of the rotation.
 

OOC

They are not going to play 4 BCS OOC games each year, so a game a year with one of the Dakota teams is not a bad thing. It does nothing to help the program, but it is part of today's scheduling headache's. Wew do recruit a ND or SD player every few years, so I guess it does help in that regard.
 

I totally agree Bronco on this issue. Why are we constantly having to play the Dakota teams year after year in both football and basketball. Yeah we were nice and started playing them once in a while. Now they think we are best buddies and their main rivals. Go find someone else to play. Why do we always have to play them? It's no more interesting to play NDSU or SDSU (how boring will that be) than it is to play Wayne State or Florida Atlantic.
UND is in the WCHA so we have to play them. That's all well and good. The rest can go jump in a lake (if they can find a real lake anywhere which I doubt. They will probably want to jump in one of our lakes as well) as far as I'm concerned.
 

Another victory for the PC crowd (and the NCAA)

Maybe UND could change their name to the Redskins? The word Redskins, like many in the English language, has multiple meanings. The mascot could be a big red potato. I'm partial to potatoes from North Dakota because my late grandpa -- a wonderful, old-fashoned & hard-working North Dakotan -- labored hard on an Old Dutch factory line in Grand Forks to put food on the table for his wife and four boys. Redskin potatoes, like the Sioux tribes, have a long and proud tradition in North Dakota, so it wouldn't be a stretch at all to have a potato nickname. If UND changes its logo to a potato, would the NCAA have a problem with it?
 



SelectionSunday said:
Maybe UND could change their name to the Redskins? ... The mascot could be a big red potato.
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I've jokingly advocated this same thing for years. UND already plays the Potato Bowl every year. If you can have the Moorhead Spuds, why not the UND Redskins.

FYI, shortly after I graduated high school, Grand Forks Central changed their nickname from the Redskins to the Knights. At that time, I thought they should just change mascots and not nicknames.
 


Goldmember said:
I don't think Minnesota has any reson to pick one of the four Dakotas as a "rival" and schedule them every year as Bohl wanted us to do with NDSU. But I do think the 4 Dakotas make particularly good opponents for the FCS slot. Not becuase they are interesting opponents, but becuase virtually any other FCS opponents are totally uninteresting. There is something to be said for the large number of locals they have on their teams and how it generates interest in what would otherwise be a throw-away game.
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The fact is that they are usually quality D-1AA teams as well. IMO, if you're going to waste space on a 1AA filler, at least make sure its as good as a MAC team would have been.
 

I think the thing that's most interesting about this is the fact that the tribes themselves don't even seem to be bothered by it. So who the hell are they trying to please?

We'd better change the name of the city of Minneapolis, and hell, the name of the entire state, because mni is the Sioux word for "water," and we don't want to offend the PC crowd by daring to appropriate their language for our place-names. Sioux Falls and Sioux City better start thinking up names, too, since they're probably next on the hit list.

This is seriously so stupid.

I think I'm going to campaign to have the city of New Ulm change its name, because I am offended as an ethnic German that they would slander my ancestral homeland's reputation.

The far left and far right are both doing the best they can to ruin this country, and giving them ammunition like this only helps their cause.
 

HopHead, my father is a proud Grand Forks Central Redskins graduate. He'll always be a Redskin, not a Knight. He echos what you said about the nickname. ... if they wanted to appease the PC crowd, GFC should have just changed the mascot to a redskin potato. Problem solved.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I think the thing that's most interesting about this is the fact that the tribes themselves don't even seem to be bothered by it. So who the hell are they trying to please?
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To be clear, only 1 of the 2 tribes has come out in favor of the name. The other one still has to vote.
 

My gosh, people should quit whining about a school in North Dakota changing it's nickname. They've already tried to dump the name of the state twice!

"Dakota - An attempt to drop the word North from the state name was defeated by the 1947 Legislative Assembly (House Concurrent Resolution {H.C.R.} J). Again in 1989, the Legislature rejected two resolutions (Senate Concurrent Resolutions Nos. {S.C.R. No.} 4031 and 4032) intended to rename the state Dakota. "

Some business people lobbied the Legislature to change the name again last year because (I kid you not) they thought the reason people wouldn't move to or open a business in the state was because the name NORTH Dakota made people think it was to cold!

Maybe the Sioux just don't want to have their name associated with that state!:eek:
 

Iceland12 said:
Some business people lobbied the Legislature to change the name again last year because (I kid you not) they thought the reason people wouldn't move to or open a business in the state was because the name NORTH Dakota made people think it was to cold!
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My favorite in the list of possible new names for North Dakota is Baja Canada. :D
 


Historically, the U of M has played the Dakota Schools. Bernie Bierman did. If it was good enough for Bernie, it certainly should be good enough for this era of Gopher Fans. Why play Arkansas State or Alcorn State or Eastern Shore of the Northern part of Maryland State?

This game is to make money for the U and to do the "trickle down" thing to the Division IAA's who in turn will trickle some down tothe Division II schools who in turn will trickle some down to the Division III's of the college football world.

It makes a lot of sense!
 

Bronko Nagurski Gopher said:
certainly hope not. and not if they want any gopher fans to care about such a game. und in football? no thanks! i am so tired of this b.s. of playing ndsu, usd, sdsu, und. give me a non-conf game i can actually get excited about and care about. it is not the u of m's job to schedule non-conf games that excite the entire state of dakota rather it is their job to schedule non-conf games that are appealing to the majority of gopher fans and minnesotans. i certainly hope that joel maturi eventually takes coach brewster's lead on this and figures that out as well.

screw the gene taylors (ndsu ad) of the world who seem to get all bent out of shape if it looks like they will not be able to have minnesota on their schedules. go play nebraska, iowa, washington state, kansas state, kansas, wisconsin or something. let them use up non-conf spots for once. it isn't minnesota's job to do these dakota schools this many favors when it comes to non-conf scheduling. let them fail or succeed when it comes to moving to D1 on their own merits.

other than maybe some gopher fans who grew up in or near the dakotas the majority of people don't really give a sh!t when play these schools to the west. they are rather lame and do nothing to advance the u of m athletic department & teams.
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I hope you realize Gene Taylor did Maturi a favor in 2006, Minnesota looked and looked for a game and eventually NDSU agreed to a game that they didn't feel the team was ready for.

The two schools playing each other has nothing to do with favors and everything to do with location and NDSU's desire to not be a pain in your neck. Will Saul Phillips ever demand a home game? No. He is content with his team traveling to Minnesota every year. Many NDSU coaches are the same way. They want to play Minnesota and are very flexible in getting the games scheduled.

This past year NDSU was 2nd best team the Gophers played in non-conference for basketball, so don't spew that idiotic line about how playing NDSU does nothing for you.

I do find it amazing that somebody could have a problem with Minnesota being NDSU's opponent of choice. That is tremendous amount of respect shown to your school and instead of being happy about that you spit in our face. I don't get it.

I know playing NDSU isn't as exciting as playing USC or Norte Dame but no team has schedules that are filled with those teams. These regional schools are basically taking the place of schools from places that fans don't know and care about.

I'm sorry you have to deal with idiots like lakesbison(who drives many of our own fans nuts) but they are in the vast minority.
 

I would rather have them play one of the Dakota schools than Fla. Int'l or NW louisana State or some other school from a place where there is no interest, atl least the Dakotas would bring in some fans and a little more interest.
 

FargoBison said:
I do find it amazing that somebody could have a problem with Minnesota being NDSU's opponent of choice. That is tremendous amount of respect shown to your school and instead of being happy about that you spit in our face. I don't get it.
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The vast majority have no problem with playing the Dakotas. However, it would be a bad policy to play any one of the 6 FCS schools within a 5-hour drive of Minneapolis every year. No FBS team would do that.

And obviously Minnesota is NDSU opponent of choice. The teams are half Minnesotan. The athletes are always going to want to play against Minnesota.

But for Minnesota's part, you might notice that they schduled NDSU again fouryears after the last time. This is by design. It allows Bohl to tell all of his recruits that they will play the Gophers. No other FBS does that.
 

If they're going to insist upon scheduling a D-IAA opponent every year, it might as well be one of the teams from the Dakotas. What doesn't make any sense is when it's Montana St., Illinois St., SW Texas St., Murray St., etc.

I'd rather that they just stop scheduling D-IAA teams period and stick to D-IA. There are plenty of bottom-feeders that can guarantee some non-con wins every year, and we wouldn't be penalized when bowl tiebreakers come up.
 

4starrecruit said:
This game is to make money for the U and to do the "trickle down" thing to the Division IAA's who in turn will trickle some down tothe Division II schools who in turn will trickle some down to the Division III's of the college football world.

It makes a lot of sense!
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It would make more sense if the SDSU/NDSU football teams actually played Division II schools.
 

Ok maximus: I suppose the schedules have changed now. I recall Winona State playing some of the Dakota teams fairly recently. I suppose switching to 1AA will change that. I would imagine that at some point in the future there may be an occasional match-up with Mankato or St. Cloud and a 1AA. It also helps in the sense that the football income earned by the 1AA's helps their entire athletic budgets when they get to play a 1A program. Certainly there will be hoops match-ups between some of these more local 1AA's and some of the local Division 2's. Every now and then some Division II's will take on some Division III's in hoops as well. In some ways that helps do the "trickle down" thing. The NCAA is a bunch of college prexys looking for ways to run the athletic systems and govern all levels of college athletics. They have GOT to find ways to "share the wealth..." if they are going to keep their NCAA thing going strong...
 

DII schools do occationaly...

move up to play 1AA, but they didn't have a extra game added just for this purpose. They do it for the same reason that 1AA move up, money. While the paycheck is nowhere near what it is when D1 and 1AA play, it does help. U.M.D. has played at Humbolt State of California, and Montana State for this purpose, if I remember correctly. If North Dakota became "Baja Canada"...would South Dakota become "Baja Baja Canada"?
 

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