Since it's the last week for offseason talk I wanted to share a hare-brained idea I had, based loosely on a thread on the Montana forum about potentially playing an entire schedule of Big Sky games. An alternate proposal in the thread was to spin off the perennially weaker conference teams then play a round robin of only the stronger BSC teams.

My proposal is a bit of a hybrid where BSC operates in a 2-division pro/rel structure (similar to European Soccer). It's easier to visualize with an even number of teams so I'll outline it assuming at some point there are 14 teams in the BSC:

• 7 Teams in BSC A that play a round robin, the highest of which in the standings wins the auto bid.
• 7 Teams in BSC B that play a round robin
• Each team plays 3 teams in the other division, with preference given to protected rivals. These count for tiebreakers in standings.

At the end of each season, the bottom two (or three) teams in BSC A are swapped with the top two or 3 of BSC B. All teams are eligible for the playoff, but only BSC A teams are eligible for the conference championship and autobid. The idea is it promotes good SoS for the likely playoff teams but also makes the season meaningful and doable for your UNCs and PSUs. A team could theoretically go 4-6 and still have an exciting last week of the season by getting promoted to BSC A with a key win.

Great stuff!

I'm guessing the New Mexico, Grand Canyon, and UNLV games both home and away will all be televised at least, wondering what else will get picked up. Hopefully we can pack the house (or at least fill the lower bowl) for some of the big MWC matchups to put on a good showing.

The English Championship is something like the 6th best soccer league in the world. I went to a Championship game (Watford) a few months ago and the season ticket holders sitting with me were complaining how hard it was to get promoted into the Premier League. Hopefully the Wrexham show along with Ted Lasso are helping build US appreciation for how storied and exciting even non-Premiership football is in the UK, and how big of a deal it is for players like Max to get significant time there.

In terms of ambiance and attendance, it definitely felt like my experiences at MLS games. Very "big time" (just not Manchester/Arsenal big) and not comparable to minor leagues in US sports. So it's awesome for Max to have a chance to build some brand recognition as a starter and hopefully star.

What type of smart TV do you have? I was able to get it on my Roku TV, just had to make sure to download MW+ and not the older Mountain West app

Gotcha -- looks like those are the away games at conferences like the Big West that have ESPN partnerships. At our level I guess it still might be the norm for away noncon games.

Where did you see the ESPN+ inclusion by any chance? It makes sense to me but I haven't found anything from the MWC on it

Worth noting that nationally televised conference and home noncon games, of which there will be a lot more than in the BW, likely won't be available on MW+. Some time ago in the thread I did a back of the napkin calculation to guess that maybe one in four games would fall into this more limited category.

MWC TV partners are Fox, CBS, and The CW -- so to see every possible broadcast you'd want a cable or streaming option that has as much as possible of Fox, FS1, FS2, CBS, CBS Sports Net, and The CW. I use Hulu With Live TV which has all of them but I've seen mention of others like a Youtube TV sports plan.

So to break it down, especially in conference season, I'm guessing you're looking at 3/4 of the games on MW+, then the need for some cable TV plan (or a sports bar) for the rest.

Thinking the Ags battle PSU roughly evenly the first quarter or more until QB settles in and the team understands more about what kind of defense they're running, then make it comfortable in the second half. Something like a 10 or 14 point win that isn't as close as it seems, with a relatively large TOP for a Plough team due to reliance on ground game / safe playcalling.

I likely won't even be able to watch that day and I'm mentally preparing for a stressful experience checking scores in the first half.

Always fun to beat a PAC-12 team

Totally slipped my memory that we already have a couple of trees at the stadium -- probably because they looked more like the first pic the last time I was at that end!

Re: using them for landscaping, one of the things I learned when reading up visit said grove was that coast redwoods can grow to their near theoretical maximum height without being exposed to fog (though rare in nature), just like the above posts said you need a constant water source. So it might need some sort of active irrigation system to keep them looking pristine (the grove I went to had a creek running through it).

What I’m wondering is how long it would take to grow them to a meaningful height, or whether they can be planted in at 20-30 feet. I’m reading they grow fast in early years but still might take decades to reach a meaningful height (like 70-100 ft). Using large trees as part of a stadium renovation definitely would imply some long-haul plans

Since I happened to have just done some hiking in one of the old-growth redwood forests this morning, I totally get you on the redwood interest. They really leave an impression.

both of the last times we won in Missoula the third quarter was pivotal if I recall.

I remember Plough said something to the effect of third quarter being a different environment because fans aren’t back to their seats yet

I always liked the MWC format over the Anaheim-era Big West format (all neutral* site, including byes on both Men's and Women's compared to no byes for Men's). Glad they're keeping it very similar so that Aggie fans can get minimum two games in Vegas.

*not neutral for UNLV but at least for everyone else

Forgive me if this got covered much earlier in the thread, but am I reading the MWC TV deals right that about 1 in 3 MBB games will be nationally televised across the conference? (58 regular season TV games guaranteed, assumes each MWC school hosts up to 15 games per year). That's that's a jarring leap up for exposure even if most of them are FS2/CBSSN or what have you.

Also, same math produces about 1 in 10 WBB games, which might mean in practice each MWC team gets to at least host one TV women's game, whereas I don't think that ever really happened in the Big West

I had this thought that they might be better off working with Lewis and Clark College (south of downtown but ostensibly closer than Hillsboro) to renovate their little D3 stadium than start fresh somewhere or fight to get back into Providence Park, the downtown stadium.

Worth noting that Providence Park has been expanded recently and while it's a cool and historic soccer venue now, it probably is too big for what PSU can reasonably expect to fill.

https://www.ucdavis.edu/sites/default/files/media/documents/26-46%20Women%27s%20Equestrian%20Program%20FINAL%207.13.26_1.pdf

I read the actual report and I think it largely is captured by Jdur's second paragraph. It does kind of gloss over the fact that the consultant ICA retained probably did use too big of a number for Equestrian expenditures, but not maliciously. The report also implies the existence of (but doesn't quote) internal university calculations that were using more appropriate numbers.

Folks on reddit are seizing on that to point out that the audit is gently pushing back on the consultants' numbers, but what I'm not getting from either the critics or the audit report is whether the university exclusively made its final decision based on the consultant work rather than just as a third-party verification from a different angle.

The thing about this leak is that it makes sense. If the program's thinking about moving up, it would be rational to push it out a few years (not announcing until 100% ready to avoid a Sac situation, getting stadium upgrades underway, and competing for FCS championships in the meantime) but drop hints to recruits who might stick around for the transition.

I'm not really liking the format of having head-to-head make the third game irrelevant, but it is a bright spot that Max and other depth players like him will almost assuredly get minutes. And with a week of prep hopefully it's a better showcase of his potential upside here than say at the end of a blowout.

He's making good money now but his MLS contract is up in two years, wonder how much the allure of a WC appearance and hopefully solid minutes will help him in free agency or negotiation.

Eye test when i was at SDSU led me to be convinced that Gross's stellar teams of the era would easily be competitive in the MWC. I remember my student who was on the WBB team was quite grumpy about losing to Morgan Bertsch and the Ags