For Bison football fans clamoring for a move up a level to the Football Bowl Subdivision, North Dakota State president Dean Bresciani threw a bucket of ice water on your dreams Friday.
Appearing on the "Mike McFeely Show" on KFGO, Bresciani said "right now we're not seeing any reason or pressure to move up."
(You can listen to the entire interview by clicking here.)
"Interestingly enough I'm not even getting pressure for that. Certainly there are people who are interested, but I think people are very happy with how we're performing and the national attention we're getting," Bresciani said. "We have the opportunity to play BCS schools without the expenses and complications of being at that level."
NDSU won its unprecedented fourth consecutive Football Championship Subdivision title last weekend, beating Illinois State 29-27 in Frisco, Texas.
Bresciani is at the NCAA convention in Washington, D.C., and he said chatter about the future of Division I football is dominating conversation.
"There are some pretty intense conversations going on about what is going to happen to Division I football and how it's going to be compartmentalized. We're going to have to play close attention to that. It's a complicated business and I don't think we want to see ourselves diminished by any changes in Division I football, but right now we're also not seeing any reason or pressure to move up," Bresciani said.
Some Bison fans and local media have indicated they'd like to see NDSU move up to a lower-level FBS league like the Mountain West, Sun Belt or Mid-American. Fargo city commissioner Dave Piepkorn, a former Bison football player, has said the city and school should look into ways to expand the Fargodome or explore ways build an outdoor stadium that is larger than the 18,700-seat dome.
But the so-called cost-of-attendance stipend being bandied about at the higher levels of Division I is driving the discussion in NCAA circles. The Power 5 conferences -- the Big Ten, Pac-10, Big 12, Southeastern and Atlantic Coast -- are pushing to pay athletes a stipend to offset college costs not covered by athletic scholarships. Right now, that's looking like something in the $2,000-$5,000 range. Of course, that depends on the institution because costs vary at different schools, cities and states.
Could that issue trickle down to lesser FBS conferences and could that affect any decisions about the future of NDSU athletics?
"It's looking for the big five conferences it's absolutely going to cost and it's going to cost a lot more and frankly looking like the less-funded institutions in the big five conferences are really struggling with how they are going to afford it," Bresciani said. "But I think at the FCS level that is probably the proverbial perfect balance. What we're getting and what were giving to those programs. That's what were trying to maintain is that reasonable balance."