Bison

I don't see any points being awarded for beating FCS teams ranked 1-15. CU & Oregon beat ranked FCS teams recently so their scores should be higher.

Having both AZ schools and Utah following CU to the Big 12 has lessened the impact of losing the P12. I think I'm going to miss Oregon and WSU the most from the P12 but the four Cali schools can go to hell. USC & UCLA ended this conference by joining the Big ten and I'm not going to miss seeing those empty stadiums at Stanford & Cal.

The odds aren't that good for Idaho pulling off the upset in Laramie. You have to think that WYO's players were flat out embarrassed and comes out fired up and focused. Idaho is hosting Albany who went to the FCS semifinals and then they travel to Abilene Christian who nearly knocked off Texas Tech. All before Big Sky Conference play.

I believe it was Venu Sports that they blocked but I'm not aware of the standalone ESPN service being blocked since it's launching next year.

Big 12 After Dark game for sure...Hunter versus McMillan...maybe they will let McMillan line up against Hunter on defense too.

As for the required ESPN+ games, I thought it was a requirement for the current B12 deal. It wouldn't shock me if CU had no games on ESPN+ this year because everyone wants to see Coach Prime. If Coach Prime wasn't around, CU would be a good bet to be on ESPN+ at least a few times. ESPN+ is so worth it that I can watch many CU athletic contests with a standalone subscription. That was a big part in my excitement for CU's return to the B12. ESPN+ was also the gateway to FCS football for me. Totally worth it!

Every B12 team is required to have one home game on ESPN+ and Utah already had that against SUU so I wouldn't expect another Utah football game on ESPN+. For CU it's either going to be Baylor or Cincinnati for Coach Prime's ESPN+ appearance.

Many B12 women's soccer and volleyball games will be on ESPN+. B12 basketball games on the current ESPN deal that expires after this season will be mostly on ESPN's family of channels including ESPN+. Baseball & softball games will be mostly on ESPN+. And you have access to many other conferences including pro sports. B12 fans are going to have to revisit those details next season when the new media rights deal kicks in since Fox will be televising basketball games (not under the current B12 deal).

Agree on user friendliness and functionality...not the best but you can't beat the kind of access ESPN+ provides. Going to be curious to see what that standalone ESPN streaming service will be like which is set to launch next year and include every ESPN channel including ESPN+.

Funny thing is that when they were renaming Dixie State to Utah Tech, Utah Poly was one of those names mentioned.

Too bad I don't think McMillan will win NPOTY again after NAU since he will be resting in the second half so he'll be ready for a big game at Kansas State. Going to be curious to see how KSU's secondary handles a high profile WR.

Not a surprise he is on the list and he would cement himself on that list if he performs well against Oregon and either BSU keeps it close or pulls off the upset.

That was also in the bylaws for the Big 12 and other conferences. It's not quite what you think it is.

I have seen some of you guys talk about FCS teams so why not do a thread on that? I'm more of a MVFC fan than a Big Sky fan but I think that much have more to do with the performance of Northern Colorado since they joined the Big Sky in 2006. I will limit my scope to those two conferences for now. FCS Top 25: Who Moved and What Changed in the National Rankings for Week 2 - Underdog Dynasty Underdog Dynasty talks about the changes to the FCS Top 25 after Week 1. As for this week's games: Idaho at Wyoming Western Oregon at Idaho State (rooting for Cody Hawkins the former Buffs QB) Montana at North Dakota (should be a good one) Cal Poly at Stanford Northern Colorado at Colorado State (already a game thread for this one) Drake at Eastern Washington Maine at Montana State Portland State at Weber State Northern Arizona at Arizona Sacramento State at Frenso State Texas A&M Commerce at UC Davis Missouri State at Ball State (MSU is moving to CUSA next year) Valpariso at Youngstown State Northern Iowa at St. Thomas South Dakota at Wisconsin Tennesse State at NDSU Southern Illinois at Austin Peay Illinois State at North Alabama Indiana State at Eastern Illinois Butler at Murray State Incarnate Word at South Dakota State

Yep the lawyers win in this case.

I think such a rule is in place and the NAIA might have one extra scholarship for basketball and who knows about football so in that situation, the NAIA would be on equal footing with D2 when it comes to scholarships offered so the NCAA allows NAIA to play games against FCS football teams. The reason why I know about the NAIA is that CU has a former NAIA All American who will be playing for the MBB team and he's supposed to be really good.

What I said was the norm for athletic conferences. Last thing the MWC would want to do is drag this into a courtroom and the MWC is nothing special in that regard. You might be basing that on how Utah and TCU departed the MWC and honestly those exit fees were chump change based on the increase in media rights money they were getting anyway so they probably didn't challenge those exit amounts back then. I wouldn't be surprised if Utah's faculty voted to pay those exit fees because they were about to be associated with the more academically prestigious Pac-12. There is no good precedent for any MWC fan to predict what would happen in that case.

Sounds like North American University if you recall that school getting blown out big time by some FCS schools and they are NAIA. Their school is located at an office park if I'm not mistaken...maybe a similar thing. I think it's time for FCS teams to not play NAIA teams anymore because those have budgets that are significantly lower than D2 schools and maybe some D3 schools. D2 schools have 60% bigger athletic budgets than their NAIA counterparts. NAIA vs NCAA - NAIA

Usually those payments are paid out over time. CU & Nebraska was supposed to pay the Big 12 about $14M each on its way to their new conferences but ended up paying only about $6M. Nebraska just paid about $9M in that case. The Big 12, as per bylaws, withheld about 75% of CU's media rights money for 2010-11 so the question is that did CU have to pay another dime in that case or was it in addition to the money withheld? I have not seen one conference collect 100% of the money owed them from a departing member over the years. Even Texas A&M was allowed to keep a very small share of the Big 12 media money during their first season in the SEC if I recall correctly and I'm sure there are interesting deals out there that has not been reported. The MWC will not get 100% of that $17M from each departing member. Those exit fees are generally arbitrary and can be negotiated down. Just a few million per year of paying back the former conference is a nothingburger when it comes to the schools having budgets that are more than $1B annually.

Lincoln Oaklanders football - Wikipedia That football team was just established in 2021 and I believe they are a NAIA team which means they have about half the budget of a D2 team. That's going to be a massive jump in difficulty going from NAIA also-rans to a conference contender from a power FBS team.

Dog poop!