The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

[NSU4LIFE]

I believe their announcement was "by 2030" so they've got time.

[Twincitiesmav]

Why? Because they are trying to solidify their conference and picked a much larger school located in the Twin Cities? Augie will be there eventually, plenty of movement left in that conference. Unfortunate, but it will happen

[NSU4LIFE]

Why? Because they are trying to solidify their conference and picked a much larger school located in the Twin Cities? Augie will be there eventually, plenty of movement left in that conference. Unfortunate, but it will happen

[Twincitiesmav]

St. Thomas officially joining summit league in 2021.

[Twincitiesmav]

Lol, we have been over this. Augie would be competitive in nearly every sport and a handful would actually be Summit Leagues Champs immediately.

UST is going to have a rough start at the least.

[NSU4LIFE]

To be clear, I'm not one of those people that has ever said we would be champs immediately in any sport (if that's a shot at me), just that I think we would be more competitive than we would have been 20 years ago, which is the version of Augie that most of the anti-Augie crowd fixates on.

It wasn't a shot, it was me stating a fact, actually. Sheesh...ungrateful, son of a...

[MrAugustana]

Lol, we have been over this. Augie would be competitive in nearly every sport and a handful would actually be Summit Leagues Champs immediately.

UST is going to have a rough start at the least.

To be clear, I'm not one of those people that has ever said we would be champs immediately in any sport (if that's a shot at me), just that I think we would be more competitive than we would have been 20 years ago, which is the version of Augie that most of the anti-Augie crowd fixates on.

[MrAugustana]

Never have understood why you want that so bad . Do you enjoy getting beat like a rented mule?

There are a number of reasons. Primarily, I don't think we would be beaten as badly as you and fans of Summit League schools seem to think we will. We have invested significantly more money in athletics than we ever did back before all of those other North Central Conference schools started going Division I. So I highly doubt we would be going back to the same level of mediocrity (or worse) we were struggling with back then. Also, prior to St. Thomas joining the league, I think we had a number of advantages over some of the state schools when it comes to recruiting. A small, private, Christian, liberal arts school in a decent-sized city is a different opportunity compared to most of the large state schools in the conference, or having to go as far as Oral Roberts for a private education and playing in the Summit League.

I also think Coach Billeter's D1 experience as an assistant would have been pretty useful in weathering the transition and possibly even winning a few games along the way, and several of our other Summit League sports (Softball, Baseball, etc.) are or have been competing at a very high level in recent history and would have the potential to be competitive fairly quickly. And, as I've said on here more than once, I'm not a huge football guy personally, so if they had to jump into the Pioneer League, that wouldn't be the end of the world as far as I'm concerned.

In general, I think the scoffers who are insistent that we would fail as far as the competition goes are only focused on the Augie from 15 to 20 years ago. We are definitely a different program now athletically in pretty much every sport, and I don't think we are quite as likely to fail in the ways that we did back then, especially with a president who has unquestionably declared her desire to see us successful at the D1 level, compared to presidents during those earlier 90s and early 2000s eras who were much more focused on cutting back budgets and saving money.

There are other reasons I want to see us make the jump too, but I don't want to be too negative about the fact that we are staying Division II, because I think we will continue to find success in D2 as an overall athletic program, but the reasons above are some of my main reasons that I don't necessarily think we would get our teeth kicked in if we actually made the jump.

[NSU4LIFE]

Never have understood why you want that so bad . Do you enjoy getting beat like a rented mule?

Lol, we have been over this. Augie would be competitive in nearly every sport and a handful would actually be Summit Leagues Champs immediately.

UST is going to have a rough start at the least.

[DapperDan]

Well. That sucks. Suppose that shuts the door for at least a few years on Augie.

Never have understood why you want that so bad . Do you enjoy getting beat like a rented mule?

[MrAugustana]

St. Thomas officially joining summit league in 2021.

Well. That sucks. Suppose that shuts the door for at least a few years on Augie.

[Moorhead123]

St. Thomas officially joining summit league in 2021.

[MrAugustana]

I don't really have anything new. I was just getting annoyed that the Northern State thread was always at the top of the page every time I jumped on.

[NSU4LIFE]

I'm not sure we'll have to worry about that for a while.

That's true, we do have five months until it happens

[Moorhead123]

I'm not sure we'll have to worry about that for a while.