Taylor, Bohl excited at prospect of automatic-bid
For the second time in just over five months, President Joseph Chapman announced NDSU has accepted an invitation to join an athletic conference.
On Wednesday, Chapman said the football team would join the Gateway Football Conference, beginning play in the fall of 2008.
“This certainly brings us to the level of Division I competition we wanted to achieve,” Chapman said.
South Dakota State also joined the conference Wednesday, bringing the total number of teams to nine.
Other universities include: Northern Iowa Illinois State, Indiana State, Missouri State, Southern Illinois, Western Illinois and Youngstown State (Ohio).
Gateway Commissioner Patty Viverito said the leaguedecided to expand for two reasons. One was because Western Kentucky left the league to join the Sun Belt Confrence. Viverito said the other reason was because of the quality of programs NDSU and SDSU have.
On Aug. 31, 2006, NDSU formally accepted an invitation to the Mid-Continent Conference in all of its sports except football and wrestling because the league doesn’t sponsor those sports.
NDSU leaves behind the Great West Football Conference, of which it was a member for the past three seasons.
“The Great West is an excellent conference, but the Gateway brings automatic qualifying, and they get multiple teams in the tournament year in and year out,” said NDSU Athletic Director Gene Taylor. “This brings us more options for scheduling and qualifying for the NCAA tournament.”
The winner of the Gateway receives an automatic-bid for the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly I-AA) Tournament.
If NDSU had stayed in the GWFC, it would have had to receive one of eight at-large bids when it became playoff-eligible in 2008.
“We are really excited about the opportunities that present themselves with the Gateway Conference on the horizon,” said NDSU head coach Craig Bohl.
To join the conference, NDSU had to pay a $250,000 conference entrance fee.
NDSU also had to agree to pay $500,000 if it leaves the conference before its 8-year conference contract expires.
Viverito said she isn’t sure how the $250,000 will be spent, but thinks it could be used to help subsidize travel costs for the teams to travel to NDSU.
Travel costs were one of the only reasons why the league-members were skeptical of NDSU and SDSU joining.
The conference held an annual meeting on Feb. 19.
At the meeting, Chapman and Taylor presented a proposal to join. A vote wasn’t held until after the meeting, and Viverito wouldn’t say what the result was.
Viverito just said it was a “consensus” vote. The Gateway is known as the top conference in FCS historically.
In final 2006 Sports Network Top 25 poll, the Gateway had four teams ranked. At least two Gateway teams have made the NCAA playoffs in each of the past 12 years.