College Football in ND

[Sportsrube]

Outside of NDSU and UND we really don't hear much about the other college football programs in ND. Is the product that bad or is it just that the media only cares about the big 2? As an alumni of Minot State it is very frustrating to watch them on BEK week after week. I think the biggest mistakes Minot State and U of Mary made was to go D2. I don't know if it is a recruiting problem or a coaching problem but when is the last time those programs were relevant? As for Dickinson, Jamestown, Valley City or Mayville, unless you go to there websites, I hear nothing about any of them. Anyone have any insights or comments on these other programs?

[NDPREP]

Basically how you put it, media knows whats going to sell and is going to go after the biggest boys in town. ND as a market is very small so as broad of a reach as they can get with the smallest amount of work.

[Mandan]

Really depends on where you live. Bismarck TV will show Dickinson State scores and sometimes highlights, depending on where they played. Bismarck Tribune will show the scores and standing for the North Star Conference schools, but doesn't do much as far as stories. No Sunday paper probably affects that greatly.
If you are in the Fargo market, then I'm sure you won't see much as those schools would be too small for them.

Jamestown moved to the Great Plains Conference to be with other private schools, but that is a very top heavy conference with national championship contenders (Morningside and Northerwestern, IA), so they always struggle. It is not a choice I would have made, but they seem to do OK in sports other than football.

Dickinson St had a couple bad years in the Frontier, which make Hank Biesiot realize he should retire. Longtime assistant Pete Stanton took over and has them back as a playoff contender, making it 7 years in a row. They recently have the bad luck of getting matched up with the Great Plains champion most of the time. In 2018 they beat Northerwestern IA, and lost a close game to Kansas Wesleyan in the second round, but since then have been knocked out in the first round three straight years. They have a good mix of mostly Montana and North Dakota players.

Mayville seems to have a coach who is improving things, but improvement is slow.

Valley City has typically been the second best team in the conference for quite a few years, but not quite able to match Dickinson St.

Minot was last relevant in 2009/2010, right before they moved to D2. That is their last two winning seasons.

Mary at least had some decent and winning seasons after moving up and were 6-5 in 2013, but have not gotten above .500 since Myron Schultz retired. They bottomed out under Josh Kotelnicki, who recruited too many small town North Dakota players not good enough to play D2 and put in the triple option. Craig Bagnell has been trying to build them back up but it has been a struggle.