Leatherneck Nation

I guess, even I make mistakes. My fault for not clarifying, the announcers made a few references to it being more of a home game for LSU because of the location, although Wisconsin travels well. Just one of about parts of 9 games I watched Saturday, so Wisconsin could've changed their colors to florescent green & orange and I wouldn't have remember. Regardless, LSU is tough to play anywhere.

Looking forward to a solid effort Saturday in Madison.

KippJones wrote:...so Wisconsin could've changed their colors to florescent green & orange and I wouldn't have remember...

so.....Oregon?

Over at Buckyville (a WI message board) they're calling it the "Aaron Stecker Bowl". I like it.

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but WIU will be the last FCS team that Wisconsin plays. WIU was also the FIRST FCS opponent that Wisconsin faced (1991).

beauspencer wrote:I'm sure this has been mentioned, but WIU will be the last FCS team that Wisconsin plays. WIU was also the FIRST FCS opponent that Wisconsin faced (1991).

Also, with this being the 3rd meeting between the two teams (also in '06), as near as I can tell, we are the most-played I-AA/FCS team. Wisconsin has played other current FCS teams more (9 against South Dakota State, 4 against Penn, etc.) but all were back before the divisions ('36 was the last game WI played vs SDSU, '51 against Penn, etc.).

So what conference becomes our new sugar daddy? IMO, if your program depends on these guarantee games to survive, you should not be where you are.

Greetings from Madison! I am staying at HotelRED, right across the street from Camp Randall Stadium. After I arrived yesterday afternoon students were lined up for close to a city block [imagine this] to pick up their tickets at the one open ticket window at the stadium on a Thursday afternoon. The Wisconsin State Journal has reported that the Badgers will "be really" emotionally for this game...

Bob

sealhall74 wrote:So what conference becomes our new sugar daddy? IMO, if your program depends on these guarantee games to survive, you should not be where you are.

This is true, but the extra half million $ per game sure doesn't hurt. I guess we'll just have to find the games where we can. We have played teams in other FBS conferences...Mizzou, Iowa State, Nebraska (when they were Big 12), etc. Those games will be fewer...maybe a game every other year or so. We'll probably have to work on taking less to play MAC teams, and we'll have to work on some non-conference FCS contracts to fill in where necessary (like that home-and-home we had with Sam Houston State a few years back).

My hope is that in a few more years, we might start seeing larger numbers of our players getting into the NFL (I remember at one point we had 9 players on active NFL rosters at the same time), which hopefully should translate to a few more significant donations coming in. Plus, with certain administrators gone, some of the former players who had played in the NFL might be more likely to give back to the school.

Winning will also help bring in donations from all levels.

Even with all that, I don't think we'll be taking in as much $, so you'll see things like facilities improvements taking longer (or scaling back expectations), cutting sports, etc. I hate to see stuff like that happen, but with the lack of support from the state, I don't know how they're going to be able to make it all work without cuts somewhere.

We are already heading towards the MAC area since we have Northern Illinois scheduled to play us, but I am not sure when that is yet. We also still have on the books to play Illinois Twice and Northwestern 1 more time besides this year. I am sure the lower FBS teams will still be playing FCS teams and instead of $400,000+ payouts it will be more like $200,000, but that is still a nice chunk of change and you will see more FCS over FBS wins if it goes that direction.

My wonder is will the playoff committee really rank the FCS games lower than scheduling lower end FBS teams. I mean they have to rank the NDSU team as a tough one even on a large FBS schools schedule. I really do not see these bring down their chances that much at getting in to the playoffs, they would have to do a complete 360 and start playing SEC teams and Big 12 teams for all 4 non-conference games in order to really make a change. Which in the long run seems like it will have more negative effects on the entire league.

Too bad they blew the game last week.

With a win they'd already be talking about a potential playoff birth and it would've been destiny for us, their last ever FCS team to pull off the upset and destroy their dream. Then they'd have to schedule us again next year for redemption and we'd only agree to it if they'd schedule a basketball game with us in Macomb. Skeletor....sorry I mean Bo Ryan wouldn't be happy, but Alvarez couldn't allow this FCS idea to end in a loss.

That was my daydream yesterday. Wish it were Saturday.....can't wait to get up there for the game.