Enrollment is in decline, and therefore is creating some serious budget issues at UM. No argument there. It doesn't mean the educational value of UM has declined whatsoever. Yes, any rationale Griz fan should be willing ot admit, for some very good fields of study, MSU is an outstanding educational institution. Why that's ever even up for smack is kind of stupid to me. Here's what I find pretty laughable about the two school's as it relates to football and academics. In all of the Ash discussions on BN, I saw a pretty long post about how MSU will never out-do UM on the football field because of the type of student-athletes MSU is not allowed to recruit. That is just so far off base it's not even funny. Here's a breakdown of the 2015 MSU football team. Exactly SEVEN players of a 99-man roster are majoring in engineering. And two of those are majoring in civil engineering, which is a degree that can also be obtained at Montana State University-Northern, Great Falls and MSU-Billings. On the other side, 59 players, including 17 upper classmen are majoring in University Studies, in other words, undecided. There are also 19 players on MSU's roster majoring in business, sociology or education, all degrees that can also be obtained at UM.
So, while I have no argument that Montana State is an incredible educational opportunity, while UM has slid back some in recent years, as it relates to football, it still looks like the staus quo to me. MSU isn't "recruiting" a different type of student-athlete (football player" than Montana is. And in fact, there are currently 16 players in state and out, that I could find, that have scholarship offers from both MSU and UM.