I can see NDSU joining in 2027 and us joining in 2029 or 2030.

I continue to think our PR moves around conferences is not great. I am stoked we are moving to the MW but it was already going to be confusing having our sports in an FBS conference except for football... and even weirder when I have to explain they added another FCS school before us?

my question is: does this boost donors to donate showing that we CAN move up, or does this deflate them making them think what the hell are we doing joining the conference and letting them add another school before us?

ALSO we are supposed to play NDSU for football the next few years?!

Could we be moving up as a pair

Late breaking word on the street is that the NDSU to MWC deal for 2026 us done…

IF that is true, along with Bobby H. retiring and the changes at MSU Boze-Angeles are opening the door for the Aggies to be a very serious title contender next season. Money talks, suckers walk.

As far as the future NDSU-UC Davis football contracts, tear em up with the move. Maybe a small buyout at best.

How are we ready to move to FBS? Please, think rationally.

Cal has a yearly $30 million deficit and $400 million in debt. UCLA is bleeding hundreds of millions, and is tied to the Rose Bowl for decades. Sac State is scrambling. Even powerful no-competition NDSU has empty seats as fans stay away for multiple reasons.

You want to toss all that to play UNLV and some magical hope that 10,000 people will cross the Causeway to watch the Hornets rival? So we get plastered in FBS and told we have to raise hundreds of millions more to compete?

Why the rush? We can have continued success and stability in the FCS while FBS rents players by the year. Things will be tumultuous for probably five years or more. We'll lose a marquee player or two every other year. We can graduate players, compete for championships, add an ocassional new opponent pre-season and build our new expansion.

I don't think we are, especially without doing stadium renovations. I do think we would get more people watching a uc davis vs nevada or unlv game than vs a southern utah or northern colorado. What I am saying is its just interesting pr. I stand by my opinion we should move to the mw for football once we renovate, but I do think that's more of a move by 2028-2030. The MW for every other sport I think is a good move already. My posts are more just pointing out the complicated pr of our annoying split conference affiliations (even more as we move to an FBS conference for everything but an FBS sports) and the watering down of the big sky. I agree with what others have said that moving by say 2030 gives us a window for a FCS championship (even more without NDSU lol) and allows for renovations to happen.

I am all for the move to FBS, but if we can win some chips at the FCS level let’s do so. FBS in 5 years!!!!!

repeat of info above so deleted

I would rather dominate the FCS then move to the FBS right now. We are not ready to move to the FBS. Just my opinion.

As much as it feels so, I don't think this signals the closing of an FBS window for Davis. If I were the MW or the future Pac12, I'd be much more interested in financially stable programs that have shown the ability to grow organically - not forcibly, like you know who. What I'm most curious about now is the home-home series with NDSU we inked somewhat recently...

NDSU drops out, we could add Sac?

I don't see that happening.

When interviewed after the 2025 Causeway Classic. DeLucca seemed very clear that until Sac State was stable, we wouldn't be scheduling them. At this point, our games with an FBS opponent is a big payday for the athletic program. Somehow I don't see Sac State being willing to give UCD that kind of money in the near future, if ever. Davis isn't where they will need to spend their money to make this move - if/when it happens - work.

Plus, due to Big Sky roster limits, Davis is going to have fewer bodies that FBS teams, which is a disadvantage - or at least that's how DeLucca framed it. He, and probably Plough, want to limit those situations.

Finally, for purposes of ranking, our non-conference dates - again limited by Big Sky requiring more conference games - will need to thread the needle: be challenging but reasonably winnable.

Sac State has a lot of hubris.

This is what people said about basketball with the move up to play peer institutions. Notice the crowd for Santa Barbara on Thursday. If anything, support is worse than 30 years ago for basketball.

How is marketing for basketball?

Has there been any reporting on this situation vis-a-vis us? Is it generally understood that we declined this time?

I think it’s prudent to wait before making any decisions right now. I get the feeling that the super league the powers that be have wanted might be established at the next tv negotiations. If that happens all conferences will be remade and there will be a ton of opportunities.

If NDSU is indeed paying $17 million on top of all the investment needed to upgrade the program to compete, I assume it wasn’t really a live question for us. We can’t do that now.

neither can Sac.

That wouldn't stop their President.

While things have been done facilities-wise for football, it has been the absolute bare minimum to field a competitive Big Sky program. For example, building the smallest stadium we could, and waiting 16 years to build Edwards / Biggs so the team could work out / practice at the stadium (and not be embarrassed to bring recruits around).

Mrak has allowed us to fall behind, yet again. Remember we've been D1 for 23 years now
If football were a top priority as it is at NDSU, UC Davis is such a giant we could have this thing ramped up for FBS in a year. Its not what Mrak has ever been interested in. We moved into D1 pretty much alongside all the Dakotas and they are beginning to pass us up. Football just isn't of the same importance economically / socially in CA compared to the Dakotas. And this University does not show the passion required to grow it.

Lucky for me, I personally enjoy the FCS and the Big Sky where I see us for the next 20 years. For better or worse.

Unless Mrak expands the stadium and moves up soon, I envision us either being 1) competitive until Plough leaves or 2) just being a farm program for FBS indefinitely 3) the program goes the way of every other non-FBS program in California (ceases to exist)

Move up already.

And lose hundreds of millions like UCLA and Cal? Pile up debt, lower academic standards? No thank you. Nobody knows what will happen in 5 years, we're on a good path, not like the Stingers down 'leaders'.

Young coaches are in the wings, Cody Hawkins one example. I'm OK if FBS poaches 1-2 players per year, that's reality.

To be fair, this is momentum killing for most Aggie fans who saw hope with the MWC deal and contract. We could always point to the fear of debt or the low donation level, but why would we give our money to a $3 billion endowment that can’t write its own checks if we aren’t excited? Sometimes you have to build it before they come.

It’s cute, like a girl that’s not interested in you but knows you have resources. Keeps asking for gifts, but never reciprocates. The attendance problems will not improve in FCS and without Sac St there’s not a game worth attending with my time or money. So, the 3,000 or so fans that attend games now (non-students) can continue to enjoy our purported big time academic institution playing “we are nexxxxxxxxxxt” forever, but the tens of thousands who might care about non-directional state opponents are nauseated.

Comparing the excitement of football to FBS with the attendance at MBB vs. UCSB is so funny too. As mentioned, there is zero marketing for our basketball program and UCSB is not a peer athletic institution. So stop. Now if we drop football it would be a peer institution.

No reason UC Davis is less ready after 23 years in D1 from the Athletic Department standpoint financially. Rocko trading stadium expansion photos on X is bad leadership, as is letting NDSU jump us.

The debt Cal is in that’s always referenced here has to do with a stadium renovation from earthquake retrofit for a Power 5 facility, not a simple upgrade/expansion to a home in the ground built, allegedly, for an expansion that’ll never occur and was just a ploy to excite donors for more money for something that’ll never occur.

So go on, make excuses as to why not, instead of “why not us?” We actually have the resources, the money in the bank, the alumni to fund it (if they don’t keep getting disappointed in the ICA stagnation), and the media market and population center to support it. While I think Sac St. in now way should do this, I have to credit their leadership with motivating their donors vs. decades of boring the crap out of them.

Totally agree. If UC Davis is the top academic institution they say they are, navigating this move should be easy. The great minds should be able to strategize the move and be proactively moving forward like the institution you purport to be instead of living in a program that is clinging to the great victory at cal state Hayward or Stanford. Stop spending time letting sac state live rent free in your minds. Too much good at the university to let let would could go wrong dictate the decisions. Act like the institution you say you are.

exactly.