Ya gotta remember this: The entire sports program at Montana is built around King Football. We all fell in love with the phrase, "National Championship," and that was, is and will be honored now and forever more at all costs, the biggest of which is remaining in a lower division so we always have a chance for that honor of "National Championship" in one sport and one sport only, King Football. You really can't argue with that, given the success, the expanded facilities and the wonderful warm glow we all get from being able to cite the stats: Two "National Championships," three more appearances in the "National Championship" game, and twenty-some-odd appearances in the "national playoffs." Up with Montana, indeed.
Great for football.
Not so great for our other major programs, Men's and Women's basketball, and now Women's softball. In these sports we're left to scuffle in a rigorous playoff for one shot at the "big boys", followed if we're successful by a guaranteed awful seeding against the biggest of the big boys, while at the same time nothing in the competition we faced in this low-level Big Sky conference has prepared us for such battles. Now we know, and emphatically--Washington is not Weber State. Nor was Syracuse or Wisconsin in basketball.
In these other major sports at Montana, a better conference would enhance recruiting, improve the quality of the opposition, give us more national TV exposure, and guarantee more shots and better seeds when it comes to the playoff. But, alas, the football team would be consigned to a bowl game with a funny name, and that would destroy the egos of everybody who wants to go for a "National Championship."
So. Be. It.
And hence the mercy ending to a true mismatch last night.
Great for football.
Not so great for our other major programs, Men's and Women's basketball, and now Women's softball. In these sports we're left to scuffle in a rigorous playoff for one shot at the "big boys", followed if we're successful by a guaranteed awful seeding against the biggest of the big boys, while at the same time nothing in the competition we faced in this low-level Big Sky conference has prepared us for such battles. Now we know, and emphatically--Washington is not Weber State. Nor was Syracuse or Wisconsin in basketball.
In these other major sports at Montana, a better conference would enhance recruiting, improve the quality of the opposition, give us more national TV exposure, and guarantee more shots and better seeds when it comes to the playoff. But, alas, the football team would be consigned to a bowl game with a funny name, and that would destroy the egos of everybody who wants to go for a "National Championship."
So. Be. It.
And hence the mercy ending to a true mismatch last night.
