Bearsfan24 said:
The thing is how does Wyoming do it, or Idaho, given Idaho hasn't had that much success. Both those towns where those colleges are located are smaller than Missoula.
Idaho is also saddled with a poorly designed dome that was hastily built after Holt Arena was built at ISU.
"More commonly known as the Kibbie Dome, the venue with a wooden barrel-arched roof opened in September 1975, enclosing an outdoor concrete football stadium built four years earlier on the site of the demolished Neale Stadium, seen in this early 1950s photo. With just 16,000 permanent seats, it is currently the smallest home stadium for football in Division I-A."
Wyoming has been running into issues with the meeting the NCAA's 15,000 fan mandate, too, so who knows what the future holds there. New Mexico State, I know, has been another that has problems making that lower limit that the powers that be put into place earlier this decade.
Its interesting to look back at the last 20 years in college athletics, starting with the conference shuffling that began to take place in the early 90s, and the moving of I-AA schools up to I-A to try and fill holes left when other schools shifted. Also, beginning in the late 80s, the NCAA raided the larger NAIA conferences to bring schools into D-2 (i.e. Washburn, Emporia State, Pitt State, Missouri Western, et al).
