Interesting Big Sky Rumor

[martymoose]

Long story short, I randomly happened to be talking to a player for the University of San Diego this weekend and we ended up chatting about football. FCS football in particular. He told me that he was told that they are moving to the Big Sky. Said the Pioneer League isn't much of a match (it isn't), so they were going to move. I asked him if this was something he'd just heard and he said, no, they were told this by someone on staff.

Anyone heard rumblings about this? I couldn't seem to find much on the Internet, other than some message board stuff from 2011 as to why the Big Sky shouldn't even look at USD. Ordinarily I'd not pass a rumor like this on, but hearing it from someone in their program seems possibly more legit. Oh, and my stalking skills confirmed that this is a player on their 2015 roster that I won't name.

Seems plausible since a 14th football program would even things out in the Big Sky, but USD seems like a real different institution (private, catholic, relatively small, etc) to add to the Big Sky, albeit presumably only for football.

 

[Pounder]

USD isn't giving out scholarships, and the Pioneer League is a non-scholarship league.

Does USD make a jump without scholarships? Don't know how interesting that would be.

 

[forestgreen]

Long story short, I randomly happened to be talking to a player for the University of San Diego this weekend and we ended up chatting about football. FCS football in particular. He told me that he was told that they are moving to the Big Sky. Said the Pioneer League isn't much of a match (it isn't), so they were going to move. I asked him if this was something he'd just heard and he said, no, they were told this by someone on staff.

Anyone heard rumblings about this? I couldn't seem to find much on the Internet, other than some message board stuff from 2011 as to why the Big Sky shouldn't even look at USD. Ordinarily I'd not pass a rumor like this on, but hearing it from someone in their program seems possibly more legit. Oh, and my stalking skills confirmed that this is a player on their 2015 roster that I won't name.

Seems plausible since a 14th football program would even things out in the Big Sky, but USD seems like a real different institution (private, catholic, relatively small, etc) to add to the Big Sky, albeit presumably only for football.

Interesting information, Marty. I remember either a former PSU AD or Football coach being frustrated by the University of San Diego not wanting to play the Viks in football . Wouldn't have that issue anymore. The Big Sky is so big geographically. With 14 teams I would guess there would be 2 divisions, like the Pac-12 has now?

 

[martymoose]

USD isn't giving out scholarships, and the Pioneer League is a non-scholarship league.

Does USD make a jump without scholarships? Don't know how interesting that would be.

I wouldn't say without per se, but with minimum. Academic scholarships can be used, but I suspect that the number of full academic scholarships for football is probably quite low.

The subject for this thread should have probably been "Interesting USD Rumor" since their situation would go from doing quite well every year in the Pioneer League to be a perennial cellar dweller in the Big Sky.

 

[bigskyconf]

I try to monitor Big Sky news and this is the first I've heard of San Diego joining the conference. I really can't see the Torerros being competitive without offering scholarships and I have to think the conference would insist on that. The Pioneer now has an auto-bid to the playoffs so I don't understand the league not being "much of a match" (the winner gets to go on to the playoffs, no harm there). I don't see USD taking money from their athletic department, which pours most of its money into its WCC basketball team, a higher profile program than their football team will ever be. Sadly, I had heard that their football team may go away, similar to what their WCC counterpart St. Mary's did a few years back.