Good point David, Lake: you were a DII program just a few short years ago. Now you are I-AA/FCS and the"Kings of your state" (same with SDSU). Your only competition is UND and USD.
Ohio? Did you know that we are the only state to have national champions in all-4 NCAA football divisions? I, I-AA, II and III (Ohio State, YSU, Wooster, Dayton and Mount Union). In fact, If you include the non-scholarship I-AA schools, Dayton has won 4 titles in addition to their prior DIII titles). I might add that Ohio Northern was a multi-time NAIA national champ before they recently went NCAA D-III. This is simply a football state. The following are DI schools in Ohio:
-University of Akron Mid-American Conference (BB and FB)
-Bowling Green State University Mid-American Conference (BB and FB)
-University of Cincinnati American Athletic Conference (BB and FB)
-Cleveland State University Horizon League (no football)
-University of Dayton Atlantic 10 Conference (BB), Pioneer Football League (FB)
-Kent State University Mid-American Conference (BB and FB)
-Miami University Mid-American Conference (BB and FB)
-Ohio University Mid-American Conference (BB and FB)
-Ohio State University Big Ten Conference (BB and FB)
-University of Toledo Mid-American Conference (BB and FB)
-Wright State University Horizon League (no football)
-Xavier University Big East Conference (BB and FB)
-Youngstown State University Horizon League (BB) - Missouri Valley Football Conference (FB)
If you take look at all of these schools, we are at the bottom for federal/state revenues, where you are the largest school, making you at the top for revenues in N. Dakota. Clearly Ohio is a much larger state and has more revenue, but how much do you think trickles down to us? Heck OSU alone gets 80% of it. Even the two non-football schools have bigger basketball programs (with more dollars coming in) than YSU does.
Let's look at recruiting a typical DI football player from Upper Arlington High School (in central Ohio where I live). All of these schools are less than 3-hours away. How many DI schools are within 3-hours of NDSU? I think zero is the correct answer. The point being your DI athletes can now stay home; something they could not do before and the main reason your university moved up. Granted, N. Dakota's top athletes will still go to the larger programs; but in a typical city that is only a very few boys; compared to all of these athletes leaving the state when UND and NDSU were D-II. YSU is at the bottom of that pecking order. As to football. I might add that Kent State and Akron are lower-level FBS schools that recruit the same talent (or better) YSU does and are only 20-30 minutes away. So just how many recruiting battles do you think we win over FBS schools? This is why we have to recruit out of the state so heavily. This is why we all hope the name Pelini will distinguish us to some of these recruits in the future.
Also, we are not cheering against NDSU, we are cheering against that 4th title ...something that distinguished us from anyone else in the mind of an FCS recruit. Also, we get tired of hearing that the MVFC is all NDSU and the rest. Schools like ISU, SDSU and UNI are just as good or better. Hopefully we will be be back in that category as well.