Thinking Large: WAC in 2020?

[filbert]

So I'm sitting here in Las Vegas at a convention...having lost all of my allocated gambling money, I'm in my hotel room, reading the CollegeSportsInfo board . . .

http://ncaasports.proboards10.com/in...7&start=15

Maybe it's the go-for-broke spirit of Vegas, but, what about thinking really, REALLY big. How would you like to see the WAC of 2020, composed of:

West
Hawaii
Nevada
Boise St.
Idaho
Utah State
New Mexico State

East
Montana
Montana State
Northern Colorado
South Dakota State
North Dakota State
North Dakota

Don't freak on me...we're talking 2020...Fresno has gone on (back) to the MWC...the WAC East represents the flagship institutions of their respective states, or in UNC a presence in the fast-growing Colorado Front Range.

I realize that the WAC East is composed of what are today upper tier I-AA, provisional I-AA, or current II members, but with some football stadium and attendance upgrades could easily make the move in the next 15-16 years.

What the WAC needs to do to make this happen:
Let NDSU, SDSU, UNC do D-I penance in the Mid-Con, schedule them and the Montana schools for tune-up September games in football through say 2012, maybe occasionally giving them a home game towards the end of that period. UND has come to their senses and realized they're really a D-I school. (USD hasn't, and isn't, by the way).

The WAC would take the Montana teams in first, followed by the former D-II NCC schools. Think of it as kind of a farm-team system for the WAC.

At SDSU, Frost is OK for the next 5-10 years in D-I, but a new 12-15,000 seat arena sometime in the next 15 years isn't out of the question, nor is expansion of Coughlin to 30,000 or so. Remember, we're talking 2020 . . . Sioux Falls will have a metro population north of 250,000 and Brookings County might be close to 40,000 itself.

Sure it's all completely crazy, but so is the entire concept of the Sun Belt Conference . . .

Meanwhile, USD will be neck and neck with UNO and Upper Iowa for the NCC All-Sports title for the 10th straight year . . .

[Texas_Jacks_Fan]

Re: Thinking Large:  WAC in 2020?

filbert,
I love the above post. Never stop trying to move ahead. If a person/school/sports program is staying status quo or not striving to move forward they are moving backward. (A point I made on a radio call in show KWSN CRAIG/MIKE in the Fall of 02 when our D1 move was being debated) One thing that could make our move to the WAC easier is for you to hit it big in Vegas this week-I think a 20 million dollar donation may just set us on the path to D1A!! ;D

[Guest]

Re: Thinking Large:  WAC in 2020?

Sioux Falls over 250,000 in 16 years? Seems to be a stretch to me? I'd say 175,000 is more realistic. And it would be hard to approach that without the Lewis & Clark Water System getting funded and built.

[gojacksgo]

Re: Thinking Large:  WAC in 2020?

tom turkey is right.  it's projected high around 173,000, but 5 years later is supposed to be around 215,000.  So it's not that far off really.  It could happen very easily.

Here are the numbers

http://www.siouxfallsdevelopment.com/demographics.cfm

[Guest]

Re: Thinking Large:  WAC in 2020?

Thanks for the link to the Sioux Falls Development Foundation's website. The numbers they project for Sioux Falls all seem to be reasonable, until you hit 2025.

All three columns, low, mediam and high project growth in the 8-9 percent range for 5 year increments. Then for 2020-2025, growth is projected at 12, 18 and 24 percent respectively for low, medium and high. What gives?

Perhaps this corresponds to the timeframe in which USDSU begins to offer full academic and athletic programs?

[JACKGUY]

Re: Thinking Large:  WAC in 2020?

The Metro area (Lincoln and Minnehaha) should certainly be in that range.

[SDSUFAN]

Re: Thinking Large:  WAC in 2020?

To me this seems like a reasonable path. I had a dream that SDSU would someday be playing D1 basketball.  This dream started in 1963 after we won the National Basketball championship.  We had three coaches after Iverson who felt very strongly about regional recruiting and the results though good were not my expectations.  Jim Marking I think could have taken the BB program to a higher level, but he insisted on a SD roster and we paid for that with just a few NCC champions and a few regional appearences.   SDSU could have filled Frost every game since 1973, if we had went out of our area to recruit better players.    

Gene Zulk did a somewhat better job with the transfers from U Of M Lingenfelter, Walker and others.  Jim Thorson was kind of a Marking disciple so we went sideways during his years.  Soderberg was competing with Billiter on several of the D1 transfers so things changed in his short era. I think he was waiting for his old coach Dick Bennett to get the Badger job. That was a mixed blessing for SDSU.  

I think Nagy and Larson have a very good vision of where they are going and we will start our climb that is about 40 years late.

To think the WAC in 16 years is not an impossiblity. If there are resistence to any kind of change then we are in trouble.  Status quo seems to have way too many friends in South Dakota AND THAT REALLY NEEDS TO CHANGE.  

[OKC_Poke]

Re: Thinking Large:  WAC in 2020?

It's a nice dream.

However,...

With the way things are going in the WAC now, there may not be a WAC in 2020!!!

However, there will be a Mountain West Conference then. ;D

There's a very strong possibilty that Boise State AND two of three schools (Fresno State, Hawaii, and/or Nevada) will join the MWC by 2008 or so.

It's nice to have dreams.  My biggest is to see the Wyoming Cowboys becoming the first non-BCS school to play in either the Rose, Fiesta, Orange, or Sugar Bowl and completely DESTROY our BCS opponent!