Big Sky Shake Up

[weberdude]

Great wins in Montana! What road warriors!

One of the threads on the football board talked about getting SUU in the conference and getting rid of some of the schools currently in the Big Sky. If I won the Commissioner-for-a-Day contest, here's how I'd shake it up:

• Get rid of Sac State and Portland State: No offense Hornets and Vikings, you just belong somewhere else.
• Add a school (or two) that would enhance conference athletics.

The new Big Sky would look something like this:

• Weber State
• Montana
• Montana State
• Idaho State
• Northern Arizona
• Eastern Washington
• Southern Utah
• Northern Colorado

I'm tempted to leave Southern Utah off this list because they wouldn't add much to Big Sky athletics. Northern Colorado has been so good at Div. II football that I'm hoping they improve upon their Division I status. I'd gladly add ND State and SD State (in place of UNC and SUU) because of their football programs (as well as ND State's respectable b-ball program).

As I left the Big Sky offices at the end of the day, I would also suspend and fine Doug Fullerton for being so weak on real discipline. I'm still upset at the 'intentional' chop block on Derek Johnson. Doug's a good commissioner for the most part, but that's unacceptable.

What's your take?...

 

[wsucatfan]

You forgot Utah State, um, nah. Their football program is decades away from being good...

 

[smjcpa1]

Dog Fullerton is not a good commissioner. He just instigated a rule for the Big Sky that makes it much more difficult to recruit good athletes. Coach Rahe kind of explained the new rule to me, but not very well. I know it has to do with higher GPA's and test scores. There are a lot of good athletes that are no longer able to enroll at a BIG SKY school. This hurts our conference ALOT. None of the coaches are happy about it, but somehow the commish convinced the school presidents that it was a good idea.

 

[weberwildcat1]

smjcpa[/color]"]Dog Fullerton is not a good commissioner. He just instigated a rule for the Big Sky that makes it much more difficult to recruit good athletes. Coach Rahe kind of explained the new rule to me, but not very well. I know it has to do with higher GPA's and test scores. There are a lot of good athletes that are no longer able to enroll at a BIG SKY school. This hurts our conference ALOT. None of the coaches are happy about it, but somehow the commish convinced the school presidents that it was a good idea.

Oh, SMJCPA,

Didn't you get the memo? The Big Sky is merging with the Ivy League, we figured if we add the Dakotas...why not expand a little farther east we'll just keep going until we get to Cambridge, Massachusetts!!!

Dog Fullerton is a moron and no one else see's it besides the fans. This rule will make our weak conference even worse!

Schools like ours thrive on junior college & prop 48 players if he never noticed. I agree we should do what we can to decrease the level of competition!!

Maybe Dog didn't get the memo that the prop 48s have a really good insentive to play their senior year...Graduate after their junior year!! That should help, no?

 

[smjcpa1]

The other thing that Dog did was to force the basketball coaches to play tougher teams in the nonconference portion of the schedule. Every team is supposed to have a strength of schedule RPI above a certain number. I don't know what that number is. The idea is to get a better conference RPI by doing that. The problem is, when you consistantly lose to those tougher opponents, your conference RPI will nose-dive. Another mid-major conference did the same thing and their RPI hit the floor. The coaches tried to point this out to the commish, but he ignored them and mandated the tougher schedule anyway.

 

[weberwildcat1]

smjcpa[/color]"]The other thing that Dog did was to force the basketball coaches to play tougher teams in the nonconference portion of the schedule. Every team is supposed to have a strength of schedule RPI above a certain number. I don't know what that number is. The idea is to get a better conference RPI by doing that. The problem is, when you consistantly lose to those tougher opponents, your conference RPI will nose-dive. Another mid-major conference did the same thing and their RPI hit the floor. The coaches tried to point this out to the commish, but he ignored them and mandated the tougher schedule anyway.

And all these preseason losses make the fans love to come to the games!!

Lets see beating scrubs or lose to bigger schools..hmmm don't think either one's gonna do much for the old RPI.

I'd rather have the best team get 20 wins than 15.

Obviously the WACK doesn't care because USU plays these deadbeat teams every year and they will have their 9th straight 20 win season in another 2 weeks.

Why is Fullerton trying to pretend the Big Sky is a conference that it is not? I highly doubt our league will ever see I-A football. It's been 46 years so far.

Also, I'd rather not play too many bigger schools in the preseason, it would be more advantageous for us to having everyone wonder if we are as legit as our record indicates on a good year. Having them wonder will do more for us, such as Hawaii in football this past season. No knew if they were top 10 worthy until January. Hawaii played some of the worst teams in the nation and still made it to a BCS so I think a 'Sky school could still get better than a 15-seed in bball even with a crap schedule.

 

[ajwildcat]

Fullerton is a complete idiot, first he makes the quality in the confrence worse with that pathetic GPA/Academics rule, and then after he makes your team worse he makes you play harder teams than Big sky teams usually would.
Fullerton, it's real simple math (worse talent+playing better teams= getting your head kicked in. Which equals worse record, worse RPI, worse attendance, which equals less $$$
Great work Commish, you jack A**

 

[weberwildcat1]

ajwildcat[/color]"]Fullerton is a complete idiot, first he makes the quality in the confrence worse with that pathetic GPA/Academics rule, and then after he makes your team worse he makes you play harder teams than Big sky teams usually would.
Fullerton, it's real simple math (worse talent+playing better teams= getting your head kicked in. Which equals worse record, worse RPI, worse attendance, which equals less $$$
Great work Commish, you jack A**

which equals the big sky going down hill and not up or level, after that we will cancel football and become the summit league

 

[weberdude]

From what I know about the new recruiting rule (which is only what I've read in this string), I'm not convinced the rule is a bad thing for the conference.

There seems to be a correlation between schools that rely heavily on JC transfers and prop-48 students and schools that have problems within their athletic departments. To either prove (or disprove) my point, how many of the players who have gotten in trouble at UM and MSU were transfer students? I seem to remember some talk from the conference about trying to cut down on this reliance on transfers and prop-48s, but my memory isn't good enough to remember if this is the reason for the rule.

I'm not against either type of athlete because there are plenty of success stories out there. However, we should be good enough to recruit solid students as well as athletes. If not, we may be in the wrong business.

Four years ago, the Atlantic Sun Conference was one that made me feel that Weber State was in a superior basketball conference. After this year, I'm not sure. Gardner-Webb beats Kentucky, Belmont beats Cincinnati and Alabama, East Tennessee beats Georgia, and so on. Having been to many Belmont games, I can tell you they don't rely on JC transfers and prop-48 players.

Do I expect Weber State to be on the same level as A-Sun teams? No. I expect Weber State to be better than that.

 

[weberwildcat1]

From what I know about the new recruiting rule (which is only what I've read in this string), I'm not convinced the rule is a bad thing for the conference.

There seems to be a correlation between schools that rely heavily on JC transfers and prop-48 students and schools that have problems within their athletic departments. To either prove (or disprove) my point, how many of the players who have gotten in trouble at UM and MSU were transfer students? I seem to remember some talk from the conference about trying to cut down on this reliance on transfers and prop-48s, but my memory isn't good enough to remember if this is the reason for the rule.

I'm not against either type of athlete because there are plenty of success stories out there. However, we should be good enough to recruit solid students as well as athletes. If not, we may be in the wrong business.

Four years ago, the Atlantic Sun Conference was one that made me feel that Weber State was in a superior basketball conference. After this year, I'm not sure. Gardner-Webb beats Kentucky, Belmont beats Cincinnati and Alabama, East Tennessee beats Georgia, and so on. Having been to many Belmont games, I can tell you they don't rely on JC transfers and prop-48 players.

Do I expect Weber State to be on the same level as A-Sun teams? No. I expect Weber State to be better than that.

All I know is we never would have been able to recruit Jermaine Boyette with this rule...

My question is how strict is the rule?

I agree we want good athletes that will go to class. I think it is wrong to exploit an athlete's talent to benefit the school and not care in return if the player gets a degree. Cinncinati recently ended an 18 year period with no men's basketball players graduating.

That is sad and pathetic.

 

[smjcpa1]

Weber has always had a high graduation rate for student athletes. We were one of the few schools in the Big Sky who didn't lose scholorships because of the the low graduation rate.

 

[weberwildcat1]

smjcpa[/color]"]Weber has always had a high graduation rate for student athletes. We were one of the few schools in the Big Sky who didn't lose scholorships because of the the low graduation rate.

With Patten almost done and when this season ends we'll be able to say 100% graduation rate of men's basketball since hiring Rahe.

 

[n.ogdencat]

As for JC and CC players most of them don't have major academic problems. Most of their problems occur because of transfer stipulations, such as: they lose credits because classes don't match up for their respective degrees or courses required by the state have not been fulfilled. Weber really has never had a difficult time graduating their student athletes, so this shouldn't affect us anyway. BTW, Coach Rahe, doesn't even look at a player, unless he thinks the kid will work hard on and off the hardwood. The Brumfield case is an excellent example of Rahe giving a kid a chance, and then cutting him lose because he wasn't willing to pay the price to succeed. Yes, Brumfield would have been a great addition to our team, but Coach definitely did the right thing. I'm pretty sure that Rahe will still be able to get the best players he can.

 

[n.ogdencat]

I think that the Big Sky should look like this.

West:
EWU
SAC
PSU
CAL POLY
NAU
SUU

East:
WSU
ISU
MSU
UM
UNC
UND

 

[smjcpa1]

I did get some clarification on the new rule. The JC transfer has to pass a math and english class at the JC that they are attending. It has to be the equivalent of Math 1010. Most JC kids take especially Math classes by correspondence, internet, or etc. They don't usually take the class at the JC that they are attending. The english class is not the difficult one for the transfer. At WSU Math 1010 is the class that most people have to take 2-3 times before passing it.

 

[weberwildcat1]

smjcpa[/color]"]I did get some clarification on the new rule. The JC transfer has to pass a math and english class at the JC that they are attending. It has to be the equivalent of Math 1010. Most JC kids take especially Math classes by correspondence, internet, or etc. They don't usually take the class at the JC that they are attending. The english class is not the difficult one for the transfer. At WSU Math 1010 is the class that most people have to take 2-3 times before passing it.

well i only took 960, 1010, and 1050 twice each, lol