Here is the problem with ISU and the community

[TIMMY]

I'll go to a Notre Dame game for the Knights of Columbus steak samich. That's about it.

 

[ChiRedbirdfan]

Crazzy - you are assuming there are a lot of people who are paying attention. There are SO many people now, who do not care about sports and especially football. Attendance for high school games is down. Many teachers are anti-sports - and that sentiment is affecting a lot of people. Then you have the Catholic equation - Notre Dame - good grief, I scratch my head over it. They are ISU graduates, like football as long as it is Notre Dame - I cannot get my neighbors to go even if I give them tickets, but they have no problem paying $200 per ticket for a Notre Dame game. I do not get it - but, it is real. I know two ISU season-ticket holders, who will not go, if the Notre Dame game is on in conflict with the Redbirds.

On the positive side - my son brought seven other students today to our house for the game - working on their enthusiasm and to get Redbirds in their blood.

Comparing high level fbs vs fcs as if they are equal...... :naughty:

 

[Opie11]

This is from an NDSU fan who has visited the board since the National Championship game a few years ago, but never commented. I think that NDSU has several advantages to most FCS teams in regards to attendance, loyalty etc. The first is being what amounts to ND's only "pro" or high level college football team. They've also been successful since the mid 1900's which builds a fanbase over a long period of time. You get generations of families that have been Bison fans as long as they can remember. It also helps them being a border town with MN. A lot of their players are from MN which gets a lot of towns/cities in that state paying attention to them. There is also a large contingent of alumni in the twin cities area of MN and when you consider that U of M football hasn't been very good for a long period of time, it leads to the alumni who might have switched allegiances to an FBS school they lived close to staying fans of the little FCS school they attended. Just the thoughts of someone looking on from the outside for the last couple years. Glad to see your team doing well this year and look forward to the Oct. 20th matchup. Good luck the rest of your season excluding that game!

 

[fourthandshort]

Opie11 .... welcome to Redbird Forum !! You hit the nail on the head, combine that with a few Natty's at D-II and FCS levels, and you draw and travel like Bison do. They aren't alone .. there are handful of FCS teams drawing at that level .. though none travel like Bison ... but maybe you've just had way mroe practice traveling .. e.g/ Frisco.

But Bloomington-Normal is not only within 2 hours of many FBS and FCS universiities, plus all the professional sports .. not just Chicago stealing all the headlines, but St Louis, and some others to lesser extend. Therei is only 1 front page on every newspaper, and 1 lead story of every sports program to share that spotlight .. just way too many options in greater Chicagoland metro area.

But for too many years/decades, we just languished before ISU started committing more resources to the football program in 2009 .. Spack hiring, Hancock 2.0, real scoreboard, new turf, and now fund raising for Multi-purpose Indoor Facility.

You guys are loaded this year .. probably going to rival your 2013 team for best ever. Enjoy the ride .. until Oct 20th that is !!!

p.s. watch out for Redbirds this year, starting to maybe feel like 2014 .. we'll see when we start playing better teams. But if not this year, we got about 85% of our 2 deep back next year ... and everyone is happy about the major coaching changes this past offseason.