It does not sound good for the Lumberjacks. D2 football is just not viable anymore out west.

HSU and Azusa Pacific are affiliated football-only members of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Along with Central Washington, Western Oregon and Simon Fraser (of Canada) they are the sum and substance of the football part of the GNAC. To get a season they play each other conference opponent home and away and then scramble for games. HSU started with an "exhibition" game against CETYS Universidad of Tijuana, MX.

[Insert Trump/Wall joke here]

Way, way back, Humboldt State was a small college power. According to legend they did well because players found nice jobs in the lumber industry. Those days are gone. I guess the current cash crop in Redwood Country doesn't fill the void.

When people ask me why UCD left D-II I always begin with "DII left UCD." Not entirely true, of course; UCD was growing faster than D-II, but also D-II and small college football were dying in the West. Money in general, travel costs particularly in light of the distance between schools in the west.....

Weren't we one of the last members of the FWC non commuter schools to upgrade?

Current interpretation of gender equity laws makes it extremely tough to field a football team, and FBS schools have huge rosters and budgets. Killed programs like Hayward and Santa Clara, but some schools are adding football partly to try to increase male enrollment.

Let's not forget that we are playing a conference opponent in a non-conference game because of the lack of FCS teams west of the Mississippi.

While we are much more stable now as opposed to when we were in the Great West, we face our own challenges.

@movielover, schools that are adding football are primarily in the south where football reigns supreme. Just look at South Alabama and UTSA. West Coast school will probably never add football because the start up costs are so high and the fans just won't show up.

This page contains announced helmet designs for college teams that will begin varsity play in the year 2018 or later; there were three new teams in 2017. The new teams for the 2017 season were UAB (of the NCAA FBS Conference USA), Texas Wesleyan (NAIA Central States Football League), and St. Andrews (NAIA Mid-South Conference). Helmet images for the new-for-2017 teams have been moved to their respective conference pages.

http://nationalchamps.net/Helmet_Project/future.htm

The following four-year colleges and universities have announced that they will be adding varsity football programs either in 2018 or subsequent years (first year of play in parentheses):

• Alvernia University (Reading, PA), NCAA Division III / Middle Atlantic Conference (2018)
• Clarke University (Dubuque, IA), NAIA (2018)
• Indiana Wesleyan University (Marion, IN), NAIA (2018)
• Keiser University (West Palm Beach, FL), NAIA (2018)
• Lawrence Technological University (Southfield, MI), NAIA independent (2018)
• University of New England (Biddeford, ME), NCAA Division III (2018) (a "sub-varsity" schedule will be played in 2017)
• Ottawa University (Surprise, AZ), NAIA (possibly 2018)
• Wheeling Jesuit University (Wheeling, WV), NCAA Division II / Mountain East Conference (2019)

Don't forget Pacific Univesity led by 2 Aggies, and Ottowa!

University of the Incarnate Word from San Antonio, TX, beginning their first full-on season in D-1 (FCS-Southland Conference) . Went 3-8 last year. Currently 0-2 after traveling to Fresno State (66-0 loss) and Slack (56-22 loss) in the last two weeks.

Yikes...so much for help from the Man Upstairs! :-}

"HSU started with an "exhibition" game against CETYS Universidad of Tijuana, MX.

Huh...you gotta be kidding me...that's digging deep for some games!

They play CETYS from Mexico and Simon Fraser from Canada. Nothing wrong with a little international flavor to your college education.

Darn. I got my hopes up that the Lumberjacks being mentioned belonged to NAU.:-|

I thought Humboldt State cut football long ago. No baseball and no football. Will Humboldt State switch to a new weird mascot and add a co- ed (to avoid Title IX problems) ultimate frisbee team now ? Maybe a non- scoring league where everyone gets a participation medal ? The Humboldt State Crystal. (for the area meth problem) Unicorns. Take that Santa Cruz!

They destroyed CETYS 83- 14. Must have been a mix up, and CETYS thought HSU wanted to play "futbol", especially because the game was referred to as an 'international friendly". That just sounds like a soccer match.

I was surprised Central Washington is on the schedule, thought they cut their program too. Must be thinking of Western Washington, which is another happy glitter sparkle unicorn school with no baseball or football.

Simon Fraser is actually a conference opponent for HSU, for football only. They play the Nothern U.S. D2 programs quite a bit in other sports.

As someone currently living in WA, I can tell you that you are correct about W. Washington. Western is a good school, but it doesn't have athletics vibe. Central is a DII powerhouse, who isn't held in as much high esteem academically. I get the feeling among Washingtonians that the academic rankings are:
1. UW of course
2. WSU (in majors similar to ours like Ag)
3. Western (for Social Science / Biz)
4. Central

Western is a more liberal arts centered UC Davis.

Also didn't we lose to HSU five or 6 seasons ago?

No love for the Zags?

No love for Whitman College?

Public schools and yessss, I'd take Gonzaga, Whitman, or Walla Walla before Central absolutely and probably before any other school except UW. SPU too. Just comparing the main public schools in the eyes of Washingtonian popular opinion and oh I totally forgot Eastern. I'd probably rank them somewhere in the middle too. Haha.

Mostly off-topic: Simon Fraser's got a stellar pipe band. (Y)

What about the Seattle Redhawks ? ;)

I almost went to Western Washington. Applied, got my acceptance letter + everything. It was a fallback in case Davis changed its mind. The lack of baseball would've been too much. Bellingham used to have a pro team during the summer that was affiliated with the Mariners and then the Giants, but it was just a notch above college ball. Now I think they just have a summer college team. If I'm not mistaken, isn't Bellingham pretty close to the Canadian border ?

As a HS student visiting for Picnic Day I was surprised UCD had sports at all. From what I'd read I thought it would be like the movie PCU (that's Santa Cruz) or perhaps Revenge of the Nerds, if the Nerds had nobody on whom to exact revenge. I was pleasantly surprised.

HSU may have gotten a win that time, but I remember the Lumberjacks pulled off the most hilarious play I've ever seen in a college football game (have only seen 40 something) in 1999 against the Aggies. The punter, with no one interfering with him, managed to punt the ball backwards over his head into the end zone for an Aggie safety. He would have looked less ridiculous if Lucy had simply made off with the ball during the attempt.

I will always remember that Western came down here to open up the new stadium....They were D-II and the Ags had moved up. WW won....and promptly dropped football at the end of the season. Not one of the better moments in Aggie FB history.

Oh, and 1 more thing. Why does Humboldt call it's women's teams the Lady Jacks? Why not the Lumberjills ? >:O

Oh man, 72Aggie, you had to bring up that bad memory...that game was the infamous inauguration of Aggie Stadium played in something like 105 degree heat with fans passing out and being carted off to ambulances and then we lost to boot! It was the worst fan experience for a sporting event that I have ever had!

Hahaha..."punted the ball backwards over his head"... X-)

Pretty bad. I recall when I was an undergrad virtually all games started at 6 or 7 PM, until we got into the late Fall / playoffs. Why did this an afternoon game ... flight considerations?

We didn't have lights at Aggie Stadium yet.

@aggie6thman wow I forgot about that fact. That was an ominous day. I'm not sure how much more dramatically we could have manifested to the world "we are not ready for this." 105 heat, fans trucked off by the paramedics by the dozen, lose to a mediocre dIi school...

Water under the bridge. A glorious new day now. Drs Blue and May have me believing the sky is the limit (or maybe the Mountsin West Conference is the limit).

We've come full circle in 10 years!!

Those 7pm games at a packed Toom were awesome!

I think we are on our way to some exciting times with Blue and May at the helm!

Those 7pm games at a packed Toom were awesome!

And for those old enough to remember, the post game party at the faculty club with the free bbq was awesome as well.

Looking back, they were wonderful... then walk to a party or fowntown, fun, safe.