On the Move Up for Montana and FCS Football all dramatic like

The silent ruins of a once proud FCS program, forgotten by time

Urban Meyer once said, "If you're staying where you're at, you're regressing, not progressing."

There has been a lot of talk on whether Montana should move up when the NCAA removes the moratorium on teams moving up in 2011. It's a subject that has been beaten, brutalized, and savagely ripped up into tiny tiny pieces over the years. However, this year is special. With the failing of several FCS programs and their imminent axing, along with several programs like Idaho State and Northern Arizona who are running the risks of going the same way, plus several of the FCS' best programs planning on moving up immediately after the moratorim has been lifted and others planning on moving up in the very near future, the debate on the move for Montana has gotten bigger and has taken on more meaning.

Egriz has a thread debating where Montana would be in 5 years. Many have said that the Griz will likely be competing for bowl games in FBS play, and while expressing distaste for the idea, it seems some of Griz Nation is accepting its inevitibility. And they, sadly, are correct in my opinion and from what I'm seeing.

FCS football is a losing proposition, a fading realm reminiscient of older times of a more informal, freer society of ragtag regional powers scrapping happily amongst each other in a quest of establishing dominance that used to characterize FBS football before the rise of the 24/7 News Era. Programs that cannot bring in the gold are becoming mere pages in a dusty history book long since forgotten. Hofstra and Northeastern have dropped their programs entirely and after the firing of Jerry Glanville, Portland State said in a press release that "if we don't get this hire right, it may be the last football hire we ever make." My very own Idaho State football team is on the edge of being axed. Northern Arizona is wondering if they should also cut football due to the chronic budget shortfalls plaguing Arizona. Sacramento State is also pondering the move to ax their program as well, due to the major fail that is the California economy. Meanwhile, the best and most recognizable programs of the FCS, Appalachian State, Texas State, Montana and James Madison and a few others are looking at the 2011 date with an ever bulging eye. Major stadium upgrades are being looked at and being constructed, and other details being mulled over as well. Not that they will for sure move up but it is a distinct possibility. These teams along with a few others constitute the top, very elite half of the FCS. The rest of the FCS is losing money; in most cases many programs are bleeding money out of a major wound.

Montana finds itself in a unique situation, and that's not necessarily a good thing. Missoula is a grand football citadel in a state that's sparsley populated, with few population centers that barely match up to dynamic Boise or Salt Lake City. This isolation will make it a hard sell for the Griz to get into a conference; indeed if the FCS will last long enough for the Griz to get settled. Adding to this is that Montana is in a conference that is slowly fading and withering to nothing; their empty stadiums an echo of what once was. Outside of the state of Montana, there is no interest in any of the Big Sky schools save for a small minority of diehards who will go down with those ships. And unlike their bretheren east of the Mississippi, who compromise a good 90% of the FCS' best teams, Montana is the one and only top program in the FCS West. There will be no competition for the Grizzlies whatsoever, no matter how many teams are brought up from Division II football.

Although Montana enjoys playing for national championships in a playoff system, in the long run Montana will be doomed to a long, empty decline to irrelevance and eventual fading away if they stay in the FCS. There simply is no future with the decline and fading away of the FCS, never mind the dying of the Big Sky Conference.

Elrond Half-Elven elaborates on this (paraphrased and worked around to fit this thing):



"If Montana remains in the FCS after this moratorium is lifted, you will still be a winning program. If your enemies in the CAA have moved on or have been defeated and you are crowned champions and all that you hope for comes true you will still have to taste the bitterness of the inevitability of collapse. Whether by the swords of the few remaining programs east of the Mississippi River or the slow decay of time, your program will die. And there will be no comfort for you, no comfort to ease the pain of its passing. Montana will come to death an image of the splendor of the Lords of Big Sky programs and FCS teams in glory undimmed before the breaking of the FCS. But you, Montana...you will linger on in darkness and in doubt as nightfall in winter that comes without a star. Here you will dwell bound to your grief and Montana State under the fading ruins of FCS stadiums until all the world is changed and the long years of your life are utterly spent."