Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

[joeybrownerHOF]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

Pearl, is smooth. Would love to see a Pearl v. Jimmie Collins cage match. Probably could hold it between both campuses. I guarantee a sell out at Welsh-Ryan.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

Sports_buff and JB,

You guys need to be careful.  Those were two well-thought out and articulated posts.  Are you sure neither of you spent even a semester at State?  

To address your points, I think SDSU ever becoming a Kansas or Kentucky program is pretty much a pipe dream.  We just live in the right area for that.  U of Minn struggles to keep their name in the national scene and they're in one of the most recognizable conferences in the NCAAs.  Reaching a Gonzaga level or a Wyoming level would be a great accomplishment in my eyes.

JB - On the UWM front.  Coach Pearl is the main reason you even know who the Panthers are.  He's basically on a rotation with all the morning radio programs in Milwaukee.  He's always pumping up his program to the locals.  UWM has put up billboards in Marquette country and have begun running adds on the local stations asking fans to come see "Milwaukee's Team."  I think SDSU should take a page from this book.  This has been addressed in the past on another thread, but our coaches should be everywhere and anywhere promoting our teams.  

Sioux Falls is the obvious market to tap into and we should start deluging that town with SDSU ads promoting SD's only D1 program.  Get those non-college grads and non-SDSU grads interested in our programs.  Easier said than done, though.  Especially with the added costs.

While I agree the idea of SDSU becoming a Big 10 or 12 team is not in the imminent future I do think because we are the only DI school in the state there is much more upside potential for the State U's to become bigger in stature than UNI,Missouri Kansas City,Wisconsin Milwaukee   etc. Those collection of schools have to play second fiddle to multiple other major DI programs in their respective states. I think maybe Wyoming and the Montana schools are the best examples to emulate as they are from a population and market standpoint similiar and they are the flagship schools in their respective states. As much fun as it would be to have USD move up and become a rival again I'm not sure there is room for two DI schools in South Dakota.
When you talk about the Sioux Falls market the biggest entertainment competition is the professional/ minor league teams in Football,Basketball,Baseball,Hockey. These teams have tremendous followings with most them being the attendence leaders in their respective leagues. A lot of corporate sponsorship dollars are also going into these organizations. Let's face it there are only so many Avera,Sioux Valley's and First Premiere's in the state and we need to compete with the professional teams for those corporate dollars. It start's with attendence and interest in our product if we are going to entice these corporations to advertise with the Jacks. NDSU is at an advantage in that they are in the states largest city and have a captive corporate audience. Fargo also has fewer professional teams to compete with for the entertainment dollar. I realize some of the fans that go to the Skyforce and Canaries may never be our fans but they are sports fans and we need to capture some of them.

[jackrabbit1979]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

I don't know for sure that you will fall on your face and you don't know for sure that you won't.  We'll have to wait to see how  your doing in 10 years and then we'll argue about whether you like your position better now or before.  Until then we will have to keep using the same circular arguments on these smack boards.

The difference is we will still be fans in ten years of State (as we are now) and you will be one of the many telling their kids/grandkids what a great move we made and how they should look at attending SDSU.

[MilwaukeeJacksAlum]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

JGII - great points. I never even thought about that angle. I would think that we could win over some of those fans. I think a guy like my dad would be the target audience for SDSU in Sioux Falls. A middle aged (he'd be happy I'm referring to him as middle aged) sports fan who just loves watching good sporting events. Someone who goes to a USD-Augie basketball game just to see if it's a good game. Someone who went to the Roosevelt-OGormon game to see a great high school basketball game. Someone who goes to the Canaries games because he loves baseball. He has no real ties to any of those organizations, but loves watching a good sporting event. There are a ton of those type of people in SD. Many of them don't feel any real ties to USD, Augie or SDSU. They just want to see some good sports. We should be constantly reminding them that SDSU is the place to come for those events.

[jackrabbit1979]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

Father in Law, big Wolve supporter.  The dorms that were closed haven't been used for years, so the closing isn't a reflection of recent drops.  They are going to convert them into the suite type dorm rooms.  He also said that Northern for some reason (unlike U,State and DSu) can't include their distance learning students in their enrollment.  This aside, he still thinks Northern better do something....they still want to be a teachers college and do distance learning to train kids to be teachers.  With the consoldiation of schools and decreasing amount of kids, the number of jobs aren't there.  

You are right that they don't include as many distance students (because they don't have USDSU students in Sioux Falls) but i am almost positive that they count their online, DDN, etc. students in their total number.
I could be mistaken. It's happened once before.

[SDSUFAN]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

JGII - great points.  I never even thought about that angle.  I would think that we could win over some of those fans.  I think a guy like my dad would be the target audience for SDSU in Sioux Falls.  A middle aged (he'd be happy I'm referring to him as middle aged) sports fan who just loves watching good sporting events.  Someone who goes to a USD-Augie basketball game just to see if it's a good game.  Someone who went to the Roosevelt-OGormon game to see a great high school basketball game.  Someone who goes to the Canaries games because he loves baseball.  He has no real ties to any of those organizations, but loves watching a good sporting event.  There are a ton of those type of people in SD.  Many of them don't feel any real ties to USD, Augie or SDSU.  They just want to see some good sports.  We should be constantly reminding them that SDSU is the place to come for those events.

I think you have described a profile that may or may not have been addressed in the marketing study. I never went to Briggs and photo copied the marketing study like I did the Carr Report.  Without a question these are the folks we need to target.  We have alums who have no interest in athletics, but will do all sorts of things for academics and other extra-currliclar actitivies. So we need to get to these fans with a great product. This is why I feel so strongly about recruiting the talented people and hiring and retaining the best coaches out their.  This is no time for alumni patronage when it comes to hiring coaches or any staff for that matter. Nor do we need to worry about SD addresses when it comes to recruiting. Get the best in terms of student athletes and coach them to be competitive and to win.

[OK_Jackrabbit]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

JGII - great points.  I never even thought about that angle.  I would think that we could win over some of those fans.  I think a guy like my dad would be the target audience for SDSU in Sioux Falls.  A middle aged (he'd be happy I'm referring to him as middle aged) sports fan who just loves watching good sporting events.  Someone who goes to a USD-Augie basketball game just to see if it's a good game.  Someone who went to the Roosevelt-OGormon game to see a great high school basketball game.  Someone who goes to the Canaries games because he loves baseball.  He has no real ties to any of those organizations, but loves watching a good sporting event.  There are a ton of those type of people in SD.  Many of them don't feel any real ties to USD, Augie or SDSU.  They just want to see some good sports.  We should be constantly reminding them that SDSU is the place to come for those events.

I have lots of friends in Sioux Falls in the 35-45 age group who are avid sports fans and end up rooting for their Hawkeyes or Gophers or Huskers and don't have a local team that they're particular fans of. I would think SDSU would have a good shot at hooking those people as Jackrabbit fans. A few big and surprising wins in the future will go a long way towards gaining their interest, probably more than throwing money at a marketing campaign. I think the approach of building a quality product before spending a lot of dough marketing it is really a wise one on the part of the SDSU administration.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

Hopefully the days of walking into Coughlin or Frost and seeing people at the game with Husker,Hawkeye and Gophers attire will be a thing of the past. I also know of a lot of people who follow the major DI programs in the region and pay little attention to what is happening at the local colleges. Many sports fans in South Dakota make the pilgramage to Lincoln to see the Huskers play on a Sat afternoon. Personally I'm getting to a point where I covet my Jacks season tickets more than my Vikings tickets. If I had to choose one over the other I'm sorry the purple are out.

[joeybrownerHOF]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

This is a reply that a move by USD to D-1 would be great from a rivalry standpoint but there isn't enough room for both programs.  

I agree that SD is too small to have two D-1 programs if one of the programs has the plan, commitment and finacial strength to become a Nebraska or Wyoming.  However, I think in the short term State's should be to pick one sport (mbb,fb, or wbb) and try to turn that into a regional power.  Like Creighton,Gonzaga with mbb, Nebraska with fb, Wyoming with rodeo(?).  Talentwise SD won't produce the talent, however attendance wise I would not see a problem.  This has probably been discussed before, but State averaged roughly 3.4K in homes games the last year of D2.  Assume they should be able to get back to that number in a year or two.  Even without adding any extra fan base (which you will) that would place State very respectably in D-1.  They would be about where Coll. of Charelston, George Washington and Southern Miss are in attendance figures.  With a little work and a few big name draws to Frost State should be able to get about and extra 4 to 500 fans on top of that average.  The next step would be retention, and that is where Nagy and crew will have to start putting out a better product.  Once the better product is out, money will follow.  The Alumni that did not give before that lives in Boca or whatever will start opening the checkbook to become associated with the program, that will be coupled with corporate dollars.  All it will take is that big break game and the dike will crumble.  Look at Troy State this year in football.  They were d-2 10-12 years ago made the transition to I-AA and now are I-A.  There defeat on ESPN against Mizzu was seen all across the country.  Do you think Charlie the T-state grad threw the alumni gift letter in the trash without opening like the year before?

Got sidestracked from original. Next time should probably proofread

[jackrabbit1979]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

This is a reply that a move by USD to D-1 would be great from a rivalry standpoint but there isn't enough room for both programs.  

I agree that SD is too small to have two D-1 programs if one of the programs has the plan, commitment and finacial strength to become a Nebraska or Wyoming.  However, I think in the short term State's should be to pick one sport (mbb,fb, or wbb) and try to turn that into a regional power.  Like Creighton,Gonzaga with mbb, Nebraska with fb, Wyoming with rodeo(?).  Talentwise SD won't produce the talent, however attendance wise I would not see a problem.  This has probably been discussed before, but State averaged roughly 3.4K in homes games the last year of D2.  Assume they should be able to get back to that number in a year or two.  Even without adding any extra fan base (which you will) that would place State very respectably in D-1.  They would be about where Coll. of Charelston, George Washington and Southern Miss are in attendance figures.  With a little work and a few big name draws to Frost State should be able to get about and extra 4 to 500 fans on top of that average.  The next step would be retention, and that is where Nagy and crew will have to start putting out a better product.  Once the better product is out, money will follow.  The Alumni that did not give before that lives in Boca or whatever will start opening the checkbook to become associated with the program, that will be coupled with corporate dollars.  All it will take is that big break game and the dike will crumble.  Look at Troy State this year in football.  They were d-2 10-12 years ago made the transition to I-AA and now are I-A.  There defeat on ESPN against Mizzu was seen all across the country.  Do you think Charlie the T-state grad threw the alumni gift letter in the trash without opening like the year before?

Got sidestracked from original. Next time should probably proofread

JBHOF,
As i said before, you make way too many logical points to be a coyote fan. You need to stop now i am beginning to respect you.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

I would hope our long term goal is to be a Wyoming or Boise State. I see no reason we can't be in a DIA conference for football in the next 12-15 years. I wonder how much longer the DIAA designation will be in existence anyway. I agree it is difficult to be a marquee program in all of the major sports. Nebraska has never been a Basketball power and Kansas rarely is in a Football Bowl game. I do think as long as we play DIAA Football we can compete in both football and basketball at a competitive level.

[Texas_Jacks_Fan]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

JG II, Its funny you made those comparisons, because I have heard on several occasions, within the athletic dept. that the school we are trying to emulate is Colorado State. We are following in their footsteps.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

I think we should set our goals high and be selective about who is our role model!

[Texas_Jacks_Fan]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

CSU is a pretty good model

[GoJacks02]

Re: Whose the best team in South Dakota?

Couple of questions.

How did USD do vs. Winona? Seems like the Jacks beat them, but the Yotes couldn't.

How did USD do vs. the D-I teams on their schedule? Oh, wait.

;D ;D ;D