Quote Originally Posted by TheKingpin28 View Post
If you can get healthy, you should be back on the upswing.
I sure hope so. Not playing you guys for the next two years will help in the win column. We drop NDSU and MSU from our schedules in 20/21 and add in UND and SDSU. Either of those should be more "winnable" than NDSU, although they are also more "losable" than MSU, so we'll see.

Speaking of, for anyone who's curious who they "miss" the next two years (along with their end of season Massey Ratings for a rough comparison), here's that:
Illinois State (7) - SDSU (9) and YSU (32), average of 20.5
Indiana State (42) - UND (33) and UNI (4), average of 18.5
Missouri State (81) - SDSU (9) and WIU (89), average of 49
North Dakota (33) - INSU (42) and UNI (4), average of 23
North Dakota State (1) - WIU (89) and SIU (12), average of 50.5
Northern Iowa (4) - UND (33) and INSU (42), average of 37.5
South Dakota (31) - YSU (32) and SIU (12), average of 22
South Dakota State (9) - ILSU (7) and MSU (81), average of 44
Southern Illinois (12) - NDSU (1) and USD (31), average of 16
Western Illinois (89) - NDSU (1) and MSU (81), average of 41
Youngstown State (32) - USD (31) and ILSU (7), average of 19

So, these are the teams you don't have to play the next two years, meaning you want a low number average (you skip playing tougher teams). In terms of toughness of conference schedule, based on where things were at to end this last season, it looks like toughest to easiest goes like this:
NDSU, MSU, SDSU, WIU, UNI, UND, USD, ILSU, YSU, INSU, SIU

So it looks like, if SIU continues to improve, they have a fairly favorable conference schedule for doing well next season.