Quote Originally Posted by Thumper 76 View Post
****ty situation for UNI for sure, don't see how it doesn't cause them to bomb compared to what they normally are. Really hurts the conference when UNI isn't good, hopefully it turns around because there is another program I'm curious about having a drop off in a couple of years, NDSU.

The reason I have the theory about that has nothing to do with NDSU losing in the playoffs finally. It has to do with the fact that their President left for a different school, and their competition for recruits are really getting ramped up in the region.

On the president, there has been a witch hunt against the old guy for a while, at least as long as I've lived in Fargo (so at least a year). So that could deter some candidates. Also, talking to NDSU guys, they aren't hopeful for th next guy being hired being a great one for keeping NDSU on the forefront I guess you could say. From what I've gathered that's what caused the dip in the 90's was a bad president and it eventually trickled down. Also the state has been cutting back funding to the schools in ND and they have had to make some good sized cuts. That's never helpful for anything.

As to the regional recruiting, the obvious one is SDSU. Obviously NDSU has a massive advantage for recruiting due to the championships. That's a no brainer. However I don't think it's a coincidence that they became so dominant when the closest FCS school had a stadium that looked like it was a DIII stadium at a glance on their recruiting post cards, meeting rooms in old construction trailers, and locker rooms that were worse than some high schools. Now SDSU has State of the art everything, from their IPF to the stadium to the Dykehouse Student Athlete center. That's has really leveled the playing field between those schools, and SDSU probably has their best recruiting class to date right now (at least it looks like it). Add to it UND moving up and now starting to gain some steam under Bubbles, that adds some more strain, an more importantly, the bigger problem I think is Fleck in UM. At a glance he looks to be using the philosophy that Barry Alvarez used when he built up the Wisky program, recruit your state and region. NDSU (and SDSU) get a lot of MN kids who UM passes over or even sometimes chooses them over the goofs. I don't think that's going to happen for much longer if Fleck gets it rolling in the Twin Cities. SDSU I think might be better equipped to miss out on some MN talent than NDSU because they have started to really pony NE, but I'm curious to see what effect that's going to have. Either way I think those two things combined, and eventually Klieman getting scooped up by a mid level FBS, could cause for a drop off in Fargo. I'm not saying dropping into the cellar, but I would say with teams like ISUr, YSU, and SDSU improving every year it wouldn't take much of a drop off for them to start having 7-4 seasons. That could just be the SDSU fan in me though Anyways, what say you folks?


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So much wishing. Don't forget how many years in a row SDSU lost to NDSU before the win this year. Also 2011-12 was probably among our weakest classes in the run. NDSU has been stealing FBS recruits for the last 2 years. Not under recruited players, just straight up grabbing players with G5 offers, P5 interest. If the NDSU coaches can fix some scheme issues we still remain a top 5 team for the next 5 year at the very least. Also consider FCOA, it is going to be a huge advantage over a lot of teams in the FCS. We aren't going anywhere. I do agree the president issue is BS, and in the long run can kill us.