But the attendance is apparently required per Wikipedia.
“FBS schools must have an average home attendance of at least 15,000 (over a rolling two-year period). An FBS school must sponsor a minimum of 16 varsity intercollegiate teams (including football), with at least six men's or coeducational teams and at least eight all-female teams.”
I think attendance would be an issue for us to maintain that average.

Regarding TV money I think Sacramento area, and Northern California in general is a attractive market.

As you point out there are two decisions, should we want to and would they want us.

Hawaii is a football only member. But why the added expense since the rest of our sports are D1? We have seventeen sports.

I think it’s pretty simple. If we were assured we would average 15000 fans per game then it would make sense. That would likely pay for the extra 20 scholarships and I think the stadium was designed to allow that level of expansion. Not sure 15000 would show up on average.
Cross that hurdle and it makes sense if we were in the same conference as SJSU, Reno Fresno and San Diego State. Some natural rivalries there.

I see Weber’s Barron is back at QB. and Weisser broke his leg against Cal Poly. Barron practiced during the bye week. I I like their chances against Montana State. Weber has played a much tougher schedule so far, and their two FCS losses were with their QB out. The 14 point turnaround single play by the backup qb was a huge factor in that loss, and we were lucky to beat them.

Its been said that it’s hard to win two games against a team in a season.
An example would be us playing Eastern in playoffs after getting blown out in regular season.
If this is true, the same effect would likely be seen in playing opponents we played in the spring, Weber, Eastern, Idaho, Idaho State and Cal Poly. We beat Weber in the rematch, beat Idaho in a tougher than expected game and lost to Idaho State, so maybe there is some validity to it, in all three games so far the loser in the spring would have at least covered the spread, and won two out of three outright.

Obviously in retrospect it was a bad call. The Titanic should have gone further south.
However the choice was punt and probably give them the ball at the 20, or try to get a first down with slim chance of making it. And give them the ball at the 43. Note: We’re down two touchdowns.

Looks really stupid because defense gave up six straight completions. Who’s to say they wouldn’t have got a touchdown if they had to go twenty yards further?

The Sac Bee would still cover us like a backwater, and Dunning would write. That we need to be in Pac12

The gamble of going for it on 4 and 17 was unorthodox, but it was our last possession of the half and the assumption is that your defense can keep a team from going half the field in a little over a minute. Perhaps the loss will lead to a reassessment of strategy on both units. Hard to make changes sometimes when having success.

Bob’s column shows the pernicious effects of the two subdivisions. He seems to think that the comparison is to USC and Penn State if we move up. Its not, it’s to San Jose State. Is there going to be huge enthusiasm about a San Jose State level program? Is it going to be more exciting to have a slim chance at a minor bowl than it is to have a playoff game?

My preferred outcome would be if the NCAA ditched the distinction between FCS and FBS as far as Scholarships are concerned. Both divisions should have something like 70. Then when the two division members play you wouldn’t hear the constant “from the FCS” talk. I watched part of the Grambling Houston game and I didn’t hear FCS mentioned, with the same commentator that made that his key storyline in our game with Tulsa. Teams aren’t divided by a sharp line, it’s a gradient.

No different than basketball but basketball has uniform rules, football should too.
Does Bob think that our basketball team is now a peer of UCLA? Is there a demand for more seats like Pauley Pavillion?

Hays was a freshman starting his first game against a top 10 team, but not his first start.

Four down territory?

Nice tackle by Rodrigues. Was that the guy who was a running back last week?

Like a fly on a rhino

Big Sky hurdle champion

I’ve never heard anyone talk so slow and say so little as the UCLA guy

I loved the Tulsa player who cramped up after flexing his muscles showing off.

I suppose the lone safety is usually Venable. On the plus side, he’s still involved in a lot of tackles, leading the team. Which leaves unanswered if the scheme allows too many intermediate depth passes. Against a team with really dangerous after the catch runners, allowing that catch result in big plays. Idaho had some dangerous receivers though, as did Weber.

After the San Diego game the critique of the performance is that we didn’t have an impressive ground game. After Dixie it was we didn’t have a good passing game and that our pass defense was suspect. We easily won both games. . Not much can be gleaned from those games, and they inflate our scoring average. Its probably best to disregard those two games.

In the Tulsa, Weber and Idaho games we outscored the opponents 63-51.

Our wins showed that we can hold good offenses under twenty points, and our offense can opportunistically score and can run out the clock at the end of games. We aren’t an offensive juggernaut, except against weaker teams. We’re not a shut out defense either, we’re more bend and get turnovers. Both offense and defense have ability to turn it up in spots. We have reason to think the team will get better on both offense and defense due to the youth we have.

Having watched a bit of ISU against North Dakota, Sac State and NAU, they repeatedly look like they’re competitive and then something happens.
Against North Dakota it was trying four runs at the goal line and not getting any points, against Sac State they shifted their defensive line just before the snap on a punt and got called for having a man over the long snapper, which is apparently against the rules. Against NAU they were in the game until they collapsed in the second quarter largely due to interceptions, thrown by their backup QB. If they don’t shoot themselves in the foot they can be a threat, their game against Sac is more indicative than their NAU game.
The mobile true freshman NAU QB looked good, too bad he’s too short just like our guys.

What’s with Winston Williams not having a roster number? He seemed to be one of our most offered recruits. The game notes by the way list everyone, not just the traveling roster.