Sounds like Wichita St to the AAC... Who gets an Invite?

[TOPSTRAIGHT]

I agree--but WITH the Dakotas(or even 2-3) it is very solid. My main point is that the Dak.'s have no simple(if any) alternatives.

[Khan4Cats]

I just think its interesting that people think the MVFC is a "good and stable league" without the Dakotas. It ain't.

The Gateway/Missouri Valley Football Conference sent Western Kentucky, Youngstown State, Northern Iowa to the I-AA/FCS Championship games prior to the Dakotas joining and Southern Illinois to the semi-finals as well. We were just fine without them, they have added strength, but its not as though the conference will collapse without them either. Murray State joining adds another program that will benefit more from being in the MVFC than the MVFC necessarily benefits from having them.

[professorbum]

I just think its interesting that people think the MVFC is a "good and stable league" without the Dakotas. It ain't.

The Gateway/Missouri Valley Football Conference sent Western Kentucky, Youngstown State, Northern Iowa to the I-AA/FCS Championship games prior to the Dakotas joining and Southern Illinois to the semi-finals as well. We were just fine without them, they have added strength, but its not as though the conference will collapse without them either. Murray State joining adds another program that will benefit more from being in the MVFC than the MVFC necessarily benefits from having them.

Ok. You may be right. And we'll have a chance to see. Because for better or worse, I think the dominos falling will shake things up in short order.

[TheAsianSensation]

Big SKY football is way over full at 13 after ND leaves and Idaho comes in.No room(thought everyone knew this).

The WAC is a wreck.UMKC,Chicago St. could leave.NMSU with FBS football.Nobody else with any football.Very doubtfull they start any football.

The people "stuck" in the MVFC are fortunate to have such a good and stable league.The Dakota schools have no choice unless they want to start a new conference and that would also be problematic.


YES--all the previous statements are obvious--but some pollsters here go on and on anyway like magically things will change to fit their theories.

I just think its interesting that people think the MVFC is a "good and stable league" without the Dakotas. It ain't.

It'd be stable. Not good, but stable. And I get the feeling that all the dual members of the MVC/MVCF would be fine with that. Stable by itself is enough.

[uniftw]

Big SKY football is way over full at 13 after ND leaves and Idaho comes in.No room(thought everyone knew this).

The WAC is a wreck.UMKC,Chicago St. could leave.NMSU with FBS football.Nobody else with any football.Very doubtfull they start any football.

The people "stuck" in the MVFC are fortunate to have such a good and stable league.The Dakota schools have no choice unless they want to start a new conference and that would also be problematic.


YES--all the previous statements are obvious--but some pollsters here go on and on anyway like magically things will change to fit their theories.

I just think its interesting that people think the MVFC is a "good and stable league" without the Dakotas. It ain't.

It'd be stable. Not good, but stable. And I get the feeling that all the dual members of the MVC/MVCF would be fine with that. Stable by itself is enough.

Define good.

Would it continue to be the best league in the nation? No
Would it still be a top 5 league? You bet.

The top 5 right now are the MVFC, CAA, Big Sky, Southland and SoCon. The SLC is complete and I do mean complete trash. The SoCon is run by teams that run the wing t triple option. It's great against other SoCon teams that don't have the size to deal with it, but outside of conference play it struggles. Honestly, outside of EWU the Big Sky is pretty damn bad - that includes UND who gets embarrassed outside of Big Sky play.

Say the MVFC splits and we get the MVFC (which I would hope is then folded into the MVC and the F is dropped) and Summit.

The MVC with UNI, ISUR, YSU, ISUB, MOSU, SIU, YSU, MUSU
The SL with NDSU, SDSU, USD, UND, SUU, UNC, Weber St, and let's pretend WIU doesn't go OVC or Horizon and keep football in the MVFC - and they likely would do one of those but we'll pretend they don't

Those are two pretty solid leagues.
Outside of NDSU, SDSU and UND that Summit is pretty meh.
The Valley would have ISUR, YSU and UNI and then a bunch of meh.

Those leagues solidly replace the SLC as top 5 leagues.

The pecking order would probably be
1. CAA
T2. Summit/MVC
4. Big Sky
5. SoCon

The MVFC was around for 23 years before the Dakota's came in and was a pretty damn good league. WKU and YSU had titles in it. UNI had a title game appearance. 2007 saw the Gateway have 2 of the top 3 ranked teams in the nation with #1 UNI and #3 SIU. WKU and UNI were in the years directly leading up to the Dakota's joining in 2008.

The truth is, the Gateway formed out of combining the MVC and AMCU, which is where the MVC schools were split between. The AMCU formed in 1978 with Akron (left in 79 to go FBS), EIU, UNI, WIU, Youngstown State and Northern Michigan (left in 80 to go D2). Missouri State joined in 1981. It was a bit of a strange set up (as most smaller conferences were in the late 70s early 80s). EIU won a D2 national title, had a D2 runner up, and YSU was a D2 runner up between 1978-1980. In 1981 the conference joined this new thing called the 1-AA.

MVC sponsored football from 1905-1985. It housed many times like Iowa, Kansas, Missouri Nebraska, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Rulsa, Cincinatti, Louisville, Memphis, NMSU, Houston, Bradley, Wichita, St Louis, Creighton, Grinnell, Drake, among others. By the time 1985 hit the conference was down to 5: ISUR, ISUB, SIU, Drake and West Texas A&M. The MVC decided not to sponsor FBS football and handed control to a newly formed Gateway football conference, which was run out of the MVC offices. It combined the AMCU and MVC school. The MVC saw SIU win an FCS title before it changed hands.

TL;DR, the MVFC actually has enough members to carry on as a football conference if the Dakota's decide to take their ball and go home. The Summit League does not - unless they can convince WIU to stay with them. Given all the s*** that Dakota fans throw at "broke ass Illinois MVC schools", I can't imagine WIU wanting to send WBB, Volleyball, softball, etc... to Ogen, Utah, Cedar City, Utah (for reference Cedar City is 171 miles from Vegas - which is the same as Terra Haute to the Scott Trade Center...yep, that's haw far SW it is). Ogden, which is where Weber State is located, is the north side of Salt Lake City. Northern Colorado is in Greeley, which is 5 miles east of Loveland, CO. It's less than an hour from Cheyenne, WY and an hour and a half from Laramie, WY. It's closer to Cheyenne WY than Denver, CO.

You want to talk about a conference with crippling travel costs, it's that new Summit league.


Talk s*** about "how bad" the new MVFC would be - which is what it was for 2 decades before the Dakota's were added. It's stable, which isn't something the Summit is/would be. It also shows why the mentality of the Dakota's don't belong in the MVC. It's the "WGAF what travel costs are for other sports? Who cares if the teams sucks? Football teams will do well and that's all we care about" mentality which flies directly in the face of the MVC. It's why our lowest spending member is an embarassment of a budget and still a half a million more than the Dakota's.

Football playing Summit schoosl basketball budgets
NDSU 1.4M
SDSU 1.4M
USD 1.1M
WIU 1.2M
UND 1.5m

Yep, NDSU and SDSU are closer to USD for spending than the worst - by a long shot - MVC program.

The MVC football programs don't need to be in the #1 FCS conference. This isn't the P5 where being the toughest conference actually means anything. There isn't millions of dollars on the line from CFB pay outs depending where your teams get selected for bowl - or playoffs in this case. The reality is a playoff run loses money at like 95% of FCS schools. That's money that could be spent on other sports.

[Lakesbison]

I just think its interesting that people think the MVFC is a "good and stable league" without the Dakotas. It ain't.

The Gateway/Missouri Valley Football Conference sent Western Kentucky, Youngstown State, Northern Iowa to the I-AA/FCS Championship games prior to the Dakotas joining and Southern Illinois to the semi-finals as well. We were just fine without them, they have added strength, but its not as though the conference will collapse without them either. Murray State joining adds another program that will benefit more from being in the MVFC than the MVFC necessarily benefits from having them.

wow, thanks for the laugh. NDSU has brought the conference, if not the entire FCS to higher levels than it could even dream!
20+ ESPN games,5 natl titles, 8 FBS wins 2 Espn Gamedays & #2 overall NFL draft pick is INSANE for a fcs school & conference cmon guys we know you are scared of getting NDSU into the MVC basketball just like what we did to MVFC. its ok to admit it.

[TheAsianSensation]

Define good.

Would it continue to be the best league in the nation? No
Would it still be a top 5 league? You bet.

[cut off the rest for brevity]

MVCF wouldn't be a bottomfeeder, was more my point. I don't think it'd be a top 3 league, might settle into 2-3 bids in a given year. But it's certainly arguable.

[TheAsianSensation]

I just think its interesting that people think the MVFC is a "good and stable league" without the Dakotas. It ain't.

The Gateway/Missouri Valley Football Conference sent Western Kentucky, Youngstown State, Northern Iowa to the I-AA/FCS Championship games prior to the Dakotas joining and Southern Illinois to the semi-finals as well. We were just fine without them, they have added strength, but its not as though the conference will collapse without them either. Murray State joining adds another program that will benefit more from being in the MVFC than the MVFC necessarily benefits from having them.

wow, thanks for the laugh. NDSU has brought the conference, if not the entire FCS to higher levels than it could even dream!
20+ ESPN games,5 natl titles, 8 FBS wins 2 Espn Gamedays & #2 overall NFL draft pick is INSANE for a fcs school & conference cmon guys we know you are scared of getting NDSU into the MVC basketball just like what we did to MVFC. its ok to admit it.

It is true that you elevated the MVCF with your performance. I think you overvalue how much that actually means to the other members of the conference. I think most people here take the elevated football as a luxury, not something that is essential to the conference.

By the way, if we thought NDSU would be running over the rest of the conference in basketball...we'd have bent over backwards to add you already because we desperately need basketball power.

[Lakesbison]

I know Asian. That's the problem.. there is ZERO vision with MVC right now.

but that's allright, but its laughable to think that they would fail if added to the MVC mix.

[Fargobison]

It seems like only Valpo and Murray are going to get added for now, if that is the case I don't think much is going to change in the Summit or the MVFC.

I don't know why UNIftw keeps talking about Utah schools joining the Summit and playing football, those schools are firmly committed to the Big Sky. Maybe UNC could be shaken loose but you can't have a six team football conference and that is if WIU would even be committed to the idea. As I said before I think people in the MVC saw this coming with WSU and a deal was cut with the Summit schools in the MVFC, one group got UND and the other will get Murray and the league goes to 12. That would explain the dramatic shift the league had when it came to bringing in UND.

If the Summit loses a school, the league probably takes a look at UMKC or maybe convinces Minnesota State to pull an Omaha...move up and drop football.

If the MVFC was an FBS conference, NDSU's football would have a lot more value and influence but it isn't.