MOST wrote:New member to MVC Fan Forum but a reader for several years. An old MSU fan but have lived and worked in the in the Dakotas for a dozen years.
Agree that 4 Dakota schools: U ND, NDSU, SD State, U SD, should be in the MVC. Excellent D1 mid major sports. Good folks, good fans, good academics, good sports facilities.
This next comment I know will catch a lot of heat. MVC should split to two conferences: east and west.
East of the Mississippi River and N/S from Grand Forks to Little Rock. Some where on this forum is a map showing the locations of the top 15 candidate schools for the MVC. Notice how they naturally bunch into an east and west.
East can add any of several very good public or private schools: Valpo, Belmont, Murray State, Oakland Wisc Milwaukee, ILL Chicago, ??????. The West would be the 4 Dakotas, UNI, Drake (??), Neb Omaha, UMKC, MO State, and ARK Little Rock--or maybe Texas Arlington. Personnally I woul drop New Mexio State (FBS FB) and Denver (out of the footprint). Two top mid-major basketball conferences and two top FCS football conferences. The two conferences could affiliate for a big nationally competitive FCS conference. Plus, the west could have an Ice hockey conference.
The Dakotas and UNI are cold/cold/cold; but all 5 have domed football fields. U. ND basketball arena may be a little small (3500 seats)---but, can they put a wood basketball floor over the ice in their 11,000 seat hockey arena?
The current western MVC schools (UNI, MO State, Drake) will become the redheaded bastard stepchildren when the eastern MVC schools add more eastern schools (IN, Ohio, KY, Tennessee, Chicago, Wisconsin, ??).
In fact, I believe they wish the 3 western schools were somewhere else.
Getting rid of UNI would a bold move considering that we have 8 of the 10 non-Wichita/Creighton NCAA units in the last 10 years. Bold, but we can see if it pays off in the later rounds...
I'm with claw. HARD. PASS.