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I get everybody wants a seat at the football feeding trough but, man, trading this league and all of the rivalries in the MVC/MVFC for Tuesday night football and playing Sam Houston and Florida International in basketball seems like a tough sell.

American? Can't sign the contract fast enough. Sun Belt? Absolutely. CUSA? Eh, not so much.

BCPanther wrote:I get everybody wants a seat at the football feeding trough but, man, trading this league and all of the rivalries in the MVC/MVFC for Tuesday night football and playing Sam Houston and Florida International in basketball seems like a tough sell.

American? Can't sign the contract fast enough. Sun Belt? Absolutely. CUSA? Eh, not so much.

That's kinda where I'm at , I'm not a big proponent of football at this level, just a money drain, but that decision was made a long time ago. That being so, I always thought the Sun Belt preferable, the AAC highly unlikely , and the MVC just fine.

One thing I'd disagree with you on though is we really have no passionate rivalry in the Valley. Had a good one with WSU in baseball, but that doesn't drive anything. I like the Valley and the easy travel for away games, but there just isn't any team that you could really say we have a rivalry with. Used to a bit with SIU in the 90's , early 2000's, but that isn't much anymore and they have a closer and seemingly more emotional thing with Murray St. I mean there are no other Missouri schools and the closest regional schools were Tulsa, Creighton and WSU, so................

That said, I'm still skeptical of any imminent move.

BEARZ77 wrote:

BCPanther wrote:I get everybody wants a seat at the football feeding trough but, man, trading this league and all of the rivalries in the MVC/MVFC for Tuesday night football and playing Sam Houston and Florida International in basketball seems like a tough sell.

American? Can't sign the contract fast enough. Sun Belt? Absolutely. CUSA? Eh, not so much.

That's kinda where I'm at , I'm not a big proponent of football at this level, just a money drain, but that decision was made a long time ago. That being so, I always thought the Sun Belt preferable, the AAC highly unlikely , and the MVC just fine.

One thing I'd disagree with you on though is we really have no passionate rivalry in the Valley. Had a good one with WSU in baseball, but that doesn't drive anything. I like the Valley and the easy travel for away games, but there just isn't any team that you could really say we have a rivalry with. Used to a bit with SIU in the 90's , early 2000's, but that isn't much anymore and they have a closer and seemingly more emotional thing with Murray St. I mean there are no other Missouri schools and the closest regional schools were Tulsa, Creighton and WSU, so................

That said, I'm still skeptical of any imminent move.

I guess I'm struggling with 'played a ton' versus 'rivalry'. Playing you guys was always a big deal for us for a while but that's kind of faded, I suppose.

Terry Allen, and even Farley until a couple years ago, always called it 'Bear Week' and beating Spoon was a big deal because we didn't do it very often. Probably dating myself here lol.

I think with all the recent moves being mostly East/SE vs South and SW has led to some disinterest by Bear fans. Not much enthusiasm for playing Indiana schools, UIC etc [ not dissing them, just stating fan interest] . I think the additions of Murray St and Belmont were seen as favorable as far as teams our fans wanted to play. I basically really only get into our games with UNI/Drake/Illinois St and somewhat with SIU because of history. And a big part of my interest in playing those schools is [ besides SIU} they all have solid WBB programs and a history of such, so those rivalries are solid. Doesn't get better than Drake /Mo St in WBB at the MM level. Once I got my head around we might do this [ move] I actually got a little excited for if it does, so to play some different teams, have some different travel destinations . I like the Valley, and I've followed it since the 1960's growing up 50 miles outside St Louis and mostly getting Valley games and MU at that time. Watched a lot of SLU, Memphis, CInn, Bradley, Louisville, Tulsa games growing up. But I also don't have a current emotional tie to any other teams like a Redbird fan would have in playing Bradley or a UNI playing Drake.

Hello conference usa

A lot of chatter about how Missouri St reported their attendance for their final game on Sunday. They entered Sunday's game on pace for their lowest attended season since the mid-1970s. Missouri St then reported Sunday's attendance at 3,611 -- which raised the season average to a convenient 3,000 on the spot. Fans who attended, as well as Wyatt Wheeler, were very suspicious of that number.

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I'd definitely bet money they juiced the reported attendance for that game due to the backlash from all of Wyatt's articles.

MissouriValleyUnite wrote:A lot of chatter about how Missouri St reported their attendance for their final game on Sunday. They entered Sunday's game on pace for their lowest attended season since the mid-1970s. Missouri St then reported Sunday's attendance at 3,611 -- which raised the season average to a convenient 3,000 on the spot. Fans who attended, as well as Wyatt Wheeler, were very suspicious of that number.

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I'd definitely bet money they juiced the reported attendance for that game due to the backlash from all of Wyatt's articles.

Yeah Wyatt's great, he keeps things as out in the open as you could hope for from a beat writer and he usually tries to frame his opinion as representing feedback from Bear fans . He does get subject to little games from MSU , when he's drawn their ire, but he has good support among the fan base, at least those I know and also those who frequent our fan forum.

BEARZ77 wrote:I think with all the recent moves being mostly East/SE vs South and SW has led to some disinterest by Bear fans. Not much enthusiasm for playing Indiana schools, UIC etc [ not dissing them, just stating fan interest] . I think the additions of Murray St and Belmont were seen as favorable as far as teams our fans wanted to play. I basically really only get into our games with UNI/Drake/Illinois St and somewhat with SIU because of history. And a big part of my interest in playing those schools is [ besides SIU} they all have solid WBB programs and a history of such, so those rivalries are solid. Doesn't get better than Drake /Mo St in WBB at the MM level. Once I got my head around we might do this [ move] I actually got a little excited for if it does, so to play some different teams, have some different travel destinations . I like the Valley, and I've followed it since the 1960's growing up 50 miles outside St Louis and mostly getting Valley games and MU at that time. Watched a lot of SLU, Memphis, CInn, Bradley, Louisville, Tulsa games growing up. But I also don't have a current emotional tie to any other teams like a Redbird fan would have in playing Bradley or a UNI playing Drake.

It doesn't help when the home team isn't competing for titles, either. Paul Lusk put a soul-sucking product on the floor and Dana Ford, while better than Lusk, has had one year where they were in contention.

If MSU does jump to play FBS, I'll wish them well, but I wouldn't expect any permanent fan enthusiasm jump is going to happen by playing Jacksonville State, FIU, LaTech. Kennesaw State, and Sam Houston. If MSU feels isolated now, just wait until C-USA gets ahold of you.

I think Missouri State is in a tough position, especially if they're set on going FBS. Their only option is a G5 league and what becomes of those leagues when the B1G/SEC think tank figures out a path forward? It's a risky proposition for a school. It's a huge investment without any guarantee of return. Are there enough big donors willing to subsidize the football program?

I'm not sure the grass is greener, but MSU wouldn't be the first school to roll the dice.

We honestly have a pretty split fan base. The strongly pro football part of the base is hell bent to be FBS regardless of impact on other sports. They would take any offer . Then there's those who have come to accept Missouri States interest in FBS even though they place priority in basketball and being competitive in baseball and wbb, so while open to a move really would prefer it only be to 1-2 conferences and if not, wait out the next wave of change. That's me, anyway. When I moved back to Springfield in the early 90's, we were a NCAA tourney MBB team , a NCAA tourney WBB team, a NCAA tourney BB team, and a NCAA tourney VB team. Not every year in every sport but damn near for that period . That's who we were , but in my opinion tried to be all things and didn't focus our resources on the right priorities . At the time and into the early 2,000's we had one of the few programs nationally to make money in WBB, hell we were averaging 7,000 + a nite, and the same for MBB . Those are the only 2 sports you can ever really make money in at this level, so you have to budget and prioritize accordingly, although I'm not even sure for WBB anymore. Had a lot of inconsistent leadership ; Smart kinda stabilized some things , was good from an overall business perspective for the school, but ended up not being all that effective with athletics. I mean we have some great programs , but he and Moats haven'tgotten it done in the 2 sports that are the most visable and garner the most attention football and men's basketball.

MissouriValleyUnite wrote:A lot of chatter about how Missouri St reported their attendance for their final game on Sunday. They entered Sunday's game on pace for their lowest attended season since the mid-1970s. Missouri St then reported Sunday's attendance at 3,611 -- which raised the season average to a convenient 3,000 on the spot. Fans who attended, as well as Wyatt Wheeler, were very suspicious of that number.

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I'd definitely bet money they juiced the reported attendance for that game due to the backlash from all of Wyatt's articles.

Yeah, I was in attendance. there is NO possible way that 3600 people were there. MAYBE 3000 if you squint and count a couple sections twice by accident...