Scholarships?

[uncbearsfan]

How many scholarships will the rabbits be playing with come fall? Do you know anything about NDSU? I believe UNC is at or above 50, with plans to add five per season.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: Scholarships?

The Jacks have 42 in 2005 and currently plan to add 4 per year. UNC must have jump started the scholarships in 2005 in anticipation of Big Sky bid as I was sure they were near the Jacks scholarships or fewer in 2004. NDSU is getting close to the DIAA limit of 63.

[uncbearsfan]

Re: Scholarships?

The Jacks have 42 in 2005 and currently plan to add 4 per year. UNC must have jump started the scholarships in 2005 in anticipation of Big Sky bid as I was sure they were near the Jacks scholarships or fewer in 2004. NDSU is getting close to the DIAA limit of 63.

I think you're right regarding UNC's numbers. That's the most important thing the BSC is looking for. Good for NDSU. That's very impressive for only being in D-1aa for such a short time.

[bisonguy]

Re: Scholarships?

NDSU is currently at 60 with this year's recruits and has up to three more to offer for a couple JUCO's or some late decision makers.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: Scholarships?

I think it's smart of NDSU to get to 63 asap so they can begin earning the big paycheck from playing a DIA team as long as their Title IX and financial house are in order. You wonder with all the immediate emphasis on football if something else will suffer. I guess they are planning on those DIA checks helping to subsidize the balance of their athletic department which is not unique.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: Scholarships?

I think the Jacks first team players can compete with NDSU regardless of the difference of 18 scholarships. The challenge is depth and if the Jacks experience the inevitable part of the game(injuries) they will not be able to roll out the same calibre of athletes as the Bison backups.

[MilwaukeeJacksAlum]

Re: Scholarships?

NDSU also has a budget about $1 million higher than that of SDSU's if I remember correctly. I may be wrong on that and welcome the correction if I am.

[uncbearsfan]

Re: Scholarships?

Why do you think that NDSU has a bigger budget then UNC and SDSU? Is it just that the Bison have donars with bigger pockets? Those scholarships really do matter more then I thought. When UNC was playing the top teams in D-1aa last season, we lost usually late in the game when depth really mattered.

[filbert]

Re: Scholarships?

Part of it is budget and part is philosophy. SDSU seems to be taking Title IX very, very seriously, and adding women's scholarships (and sports like equestrian) rather than pumping resources into football. I'm sure they'd love to be moving faster on scholarships, but that's where the realities of economics come to play.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: Scholarships?

Football at NDSU certainly generates a lot of money. I don't think NDSU necessarily has significant more money than SDSU or UNC, however NDSU has had a bigger budget for athletics than most teams in the NCC for years and it's a smaller jump for them to get to the DI numbers you need to be successful than others. I think it's a matter of priorities and the Jacks have decided to take a more gradual approach to adding scholarships to insure we are Title IX compliant and because we have other facility enhancements that NDSU is not confronted with.

[jackmd]

Re: Scholarships?

I have always heard (perhaps rumor) that the endowment and donations that NDSU receives is greater than that of SDSU. I think this is partly reflected in their ability to quickly increase scholarships for FB. I know without a doubt the Bison FB program brings in a lot more money than the Jacks.

I have no doubt that our first team can compete with NDSU's first team but I agree depth will be an issue. We can't afford to have injuries early in the year on the O-line, D-line, LB's or D-backs.

[bisonguy]

Re: Scholarships?

In 2003-2004, NDSU's athletic budget was about $6.3 MM, UNC's was about $4.3 MM and SDSU's was about $4.8 MM.

Remember, both NDSU and SDSU were still in the NCC and had a DII budget for these numbers. I can't readily find it, but I believe NDSU's budget for 2004-2005 is somewhere around $7.5-8 MM.

You can look up schools' athletic budgets here-http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/InstList.asp

[SDSUFAN]

Re: Scholarships?

One area of difference in the budgets especially in the sport of football, is the coaching staff salaries. NDSU has paid better, and also if you look at the Carr report, they too are really puzzled how SDSU was able to support 20 different sports on roughly a 4 million dollar budget. They also noted that one of the big differences in SDSU and the Big Sky was that coaching salaries exceed those at SDSU at all levels.

I think SDSU football program has been hobbled somewhat with the low salaries. We seem to get promising young coaches, who are starting families and soon find out that they have to move on in order to balance their own personal budget.

I don't know if throwing money at salary problem is the answer when you consider, assistant coaches are always in the market for a better job as was mentioned by newser.

Also the business community in Fargo has been very good to NDSU since about 1963, when their new president made a commitment to have a winning program. His prior successor had a strange notion that it was wrong to beg from downtown Fargo. That changed and the rest is pretty much history and the money to enhence the football program has always been there from a year to year basis.

This is why we need to get more and more involved with the Sioux Falls business community. Our friends in Vermillion and also the pietist Lutherans at Augie probably fear that part of SDSU strategy more than anything else.

I am not so sure that NDSU is ahead of SDSU in endowments. I think they just have had great fund raising from year to year and the football staff did not hestitate to spend the money on equipment, weight training and whatever that makes a winning program.

[uncbearsfan]

Re: Scholarships?

SDSU fan: I think we at UNC are hobbled by the same problem with coaching salaries. We have lost a lot of good coaches over the past couple of years. A lot of it is because Joe Glenn keeps taking our good coaches up to Wyoming. I don't blame them for going, and hope someday they will come back. There's no way we could have afforded to pay them what they are getting at Wyoming.

[bisonguy]

Re: Scholarships?

SDSUFAN,

I think SDSU is ahead of NDSU in terms of endowments. I know NDSU is working on a $20MM athletic endowment currently. Don't know how far along it is.


As far as football coaching salaries for the younger coaches looking to climb the ladder- if you raise them, you'll just end up losing coaches to I-A programs. One of NDSU's coaches moved from the DL coach to a I-AA DC, other than that, everyone that has left in the last two seasons has gone to a I-A program. :-/