More TV talk

In Sunday's paper, I wrote this story about the Fighting Sioux Sports Network, hitting on FSSN's past, present and future. A thanks to UND associate AD Sean Johnson for answering a bunch of questions, as well as some follow-up emails.

Some of the highlights:

• UND announced its 2010-11 broadcast schedule. Includes the usual: 3 home FB, 22 home MH, 5 home WBB and 5 home MBB. But this year, FSSN has added 1 VB and 4 WH. This goes along with AD Brian Faison's mission to push all UND sports. 
• Midcontinent has new plans for former Ch. 23. It's now going to be Ch. 27 and have a new name. VP Tom Simmons wanted to wait until Midcontinent's official announcement before getting too in-depth. More events, more replays, less Home Shopping Network loops. That's what I envision the plan is anway.
• My big question was answered (sort of): When is FSSN going to have an HD option? Sean Johnson said they've talked about it. It's a complicated issue when you're talking multiple partners. Some cameras are UND's, some are REA's and some are Alerus'. When I asked Simmons at Midcontinent, he said the company is talking about how to fill the new network first. It sounded like HD was on the back burner.
• Johnson also said UND isn't currently planning to take television in-house. But I'm sure Johnson and UND employee Max Huber will be helping Forum Communications out with some production responsibilities on both broadcasts and the weekly Sioux Sports Extra, especially as FSSN expands into sports coverage such as volleyball and women's hockey.

Johnson also had some interesting things to say about UND's mobile efforts. I didn't get into it during the story because the story had already reached novel status (possibly the longest I've written in the Herald). But Johnson said the school is "jumping into the mobile market." The school plans to have its own I-Phone App, which would include live-video capability. I believe the school's also working on a mobile version of fightingsioux.com.

Posted by: Tom Miller on 7/26/2010 at 2:13 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink

Summit Ramblings

So maybe my there-won't-be-much-action-at-the-Summit-League-meeting preview story was a little off the mark.

But, hey, there were plenty of athletic directors and university officials caught off guard by some of the happenings at Monday's meeting in Chicago of Summit presidents.

In summary, the presidents agreed to move forward with UND's potential admission into the Summit League. That didn't really shock anyone. But then the presidents dropped what Forum writer Jeff Kolpack accurately referred to as a bombshell. The presidents decided to explore the possibility of the Summit sponsoring football.

If you want to read up on that a little more:

• Summit League moves forward with UND, Grand Forks Herald
• Summit League also ponders sponsoring football, Grand Forks Herald
• Summit League to consider adding football, will begin evaluating UND, Fargo Forum
• UND moves closer to Summit, Sioux Falls Argus Leader
• Summit...football???, Argus Leader writer Terry Vandrovec blog entry

At this point, the Summit is simply forming a feasibility committee regarding a potential football conference. 

Would North Dakota State or South Dakota State be on board with a Summit football conference? Absolutely not. (At least at this point).

Summit members NDSU, SDSU and Western Illinois compete in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. It clearly wouldn't make sense for those three schools to pass up a conference with Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa in favor of a conference with UND, Southern Utah and South Dakota. Also, when NDSU joined the MVFC in 2007, the Bison signed an eight-year contract with a $500,000 buyout.  

But despite the bisonville.com meltdown, this is just a study. How I see it is that any conference needs to take care of its members. And if UND does indeed join the league, the Summit will have three members (UND, South Dakota and Southern Utah) without an established football home. That's a major concern for the universities and therefore a major concern for the league. I would suspect this study would gather some valuable information for those independent programs.

I think South Dakota State athletic director Justin Sell summed it up best in the Argus Leader story: "It's always prudent to study things. I don't think you can make a solid decision without having all the information. That being said, our situation in the Missouri Valley Football Conference - I'm very pleased with what we have there."

And as we've all seen this summer, conferences aren't set in stone. The Summit/Mid-Con should know that as well as anyone. Even if Summit football doesn't make sense today, it very well could tomorrow.

Even if the Summit membership doesn't change, perhaps the Summit football conference would go after non-Summit members. Other Great West Conference football members Cal Poly and Cal Davis could be possibilities. It would essentially be Great West Conference football under a different name. But in the end, all this is speculation for a process that it is just at a study stage.

Posted by: Tom Miller on 6/23/2010 at 2:07 PM | Comments (15) | Permalink

Because you can't get enough of conference realignment

Since you haven't seen much conference realignment talk in college athletics this summer, I'll hit you with some.

• First off, there's the NAIA's Dakota Athletic Conference (which includes Mayville State) situation. The ole DAC-10 has pretty much been cut in half. If the conference is truly trimmed to five members in two years, the DAC will lose the ever valuable automatic qualifying status for national postseason tournaments. After speaking with Mayville State athletic director Mike Moore, the situation appears bleak. The remaining members seem to be grasping at straws. Mayville State, Jamestown College, Valley City State, Dickinson State and Dakota State would like to see a little help from the NAIA. Although it would be unprecedented, you would think the NAIA would have vested interest in keeping these five loyal members afloat.
• Causing the DAC problems is its former members wanting to get into the Northern Sun Conference of NCAA Division II. Last week, Minot State -- in its last season with the DAC -- was named one of two schools (University of Sioux Falls the other) that will receive campus visits from NSIC officials. Minot State, USF and two DAC schools -- Black Hills State and South Dakota School of Mines -- inquired about NSIC expansion. The NSIC, though, tabled discussion of Black Hills and SD Mines until the NCAA rules on their Division II status. That's expected to happen in mid-July.
• From the NAIA to Division II to Division I: There's also news with UND's possible acceptance into the Summit League. Summit League presidents meet in Chicago today and Commissioner Tom Douple is expected to brief the presidents about UND, including where the school stands in regards to retiring its nickname and logo. UND athletic director Brian Faison said he doesn't expect the presidents to take any action regarding UND. If the Summit feels it would like to move forward with UND, that might be something to take place at a feel meeting. I have a hard time believing too many Summit presidents are overly concerned with UND's nickname and logo, being that more than half of the league already plays UND in one sport or another. (Not to mention that the ND State Board of Higher Ed has moved forward with the retirement). Also, it was interesting to see in this Forum story about NDSU president Dean Bresciani set for his first Summit meeting that Douple points out that the league isn't interested in western expansion. He notes that Summit member Southern Utah could potentially be better suited for a more western-based league. That seems to eliminate any potential western-school road blocks from getting in the way of UND's league acceptance.

Posted by: Tom Miller on 6/21/2010 at 1:12 PM | Comments (8) | Permalink

Some Friday notes

• Even though the UND baseball team couldn't score a run on South Dakota State reliever Trever Vermeulen, they have still have to feel good about getting four hits off of him in his three innings of work. Sioux Falls Argus Leader writer Terry Vandrovec wrote an excellent story today highlighting the submarine-throwing right-hander. How are these for some sweet facts: 
  -- "If his numbers hold, and they've been dropping for a month, the junior will wind up with the lowest ERA of anybody at the NCAA Division I level in nearly 30 years."
  -- "Vermeulen is undersized for a closer, initially attended an NAIA school with no plans to play baseball and even now isn't on scholarship at a D-I newcomer based in a cold climate"
  -- "Vermeulen's ERA of 0.63 leads all Division I pitchers with at least 50 innings of work. University of Texas junior Chance Ruffin is second at 0.87 and nobody else is under 1.00. In fact, nobody has been under 1.00 since 1990."
  And that's just for starters. I highly suggest clicking on the link. It's an interesting story. South Dakota State is definitely a team the Sioux would like to emulate.
• In other UND baseball news, it sounds like the program might have received a verbal from another big recruit. I'll see if I can verify that next week. It comes on the heels of this big verbal. Now let's see if they can put down that turf on Kraft Field this summer...
• Just finished a story for tomorrow's paper on Charnise and Charnay Mothershed, the Arizona Junior College twins who signed with the Sioux women's basketball team last week. Obviously their JuCo coach is going to have high praise of the two, but he was fairly convincing. At the very least, they should be a menacing pair of defenders. It'll be interesting to see now if the Sioux can lock up any height via a transfer or if they'll have to rely on incoming freshmen.
• And we'll leave you with this video: 

Posted by: Tom Miller on 5/21/2010 at 10:31 AM | Comments (4) | Permalink

"I said send him to Mahoning Valley"

Found this on Joe Posnanski's blog. Absolutely classic. Harry Doyle, eat your heart out.

For those confused with the Harry Doyle reference: 

Posted by: Tom Miller on 5/10/2010 at 2:19 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink

Random Friday links

It's been a while, I know.

But I came across enough interesting stories while perusing the Information Superhighway today to feel the need to share them.

I'm also posting if for no other reason than to get Eli Rosendahl off my back. So here it goes:

• First off, tremendous headline at deadspin.com today: Brett Favre's Selfishness Has No Offseason. No one really thought he could stay out of the news for long. No one really thought he would go to Mankato for training camp. Buuuut no one really wants to see Tarvaris Jackson throwing 2-yard outs to Naufahu Tahi -- so get well soon, Brett.
• I don't have a link, but for this weekend's Herald I wrote about renovations to Cushman Field, which folks hope begin taking place next summer. The changes include track resurfacing, artificial turf and bleacher upgrades. Apparently, the bleachers opposite the main grandstand came over from St. James, the old Grand Forks school that closed in 1969. That's old.
• University of Sioux Falls is getting what could be a pretty good quarterback. It's a Colorado State transfer who even started a game against Wyoming last year. USF QB Lorenzo Brown ate up the Sioux last year in the embarrassing game at the Alerus Center, so it's probably a good thing this guy only has one year of eligibility left. (UND is scheduled to play USF again in 2011).
• There's this news out of Fargo. Appears to clear the way for NDSU and Sanford to get the ball rolling on upgrades to the Bison Sports Arena. 
• A good Jeff Kolpack column in the Forum today on Bison track. Ranked No. 34 in the country. Impressive. Makes you wonder which programs, if any, at UND will show that kind of progress as the Division I transition continues.
• Man, they really cover Nebraska football. This guy went to South Dakota State's spring game to scout. The column is also a good reality check for all I-AA schools.

Posted by: Tom Miller on 4/30/2010 at 12:38 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink

Sioux land pitching prospect

A brotherly bond has landed the UND baseball team a pitching prospect.

Ryan Wood, a right-handed pitcher from Eagle, Idaho, was getting looks from the likes of Division I college baseball programs Tennessee and Clemson.

But Wood said Tuesday that he verbally committed to play for UND after his high school senior season in 2011.

Why UND?

“The thing that caught me was that they showed lots of interest in my brother,” Ryan Wood said. “UND is giving me lots of money, but it didn’t matter if Tennessee or Clemson gave me a full ride, I would turn anything down to play with my brother. We were best friends through high school.”

Wood's brother is a freshman at a junior college in California.

And in what might be a first at UND, a recruit uttered this when asked what he liked about Grand Forks:

"The weather is what I like."

There'll be more in Thursday's Herald.

Posted by: Tom Miller on 4/07/2010 at 4:03 PM | Comments (3) | Permalink

UND vs. UVU, Great West championship

Posted by: Tom Miller on 3/13/2010 at 3:44 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink