They are having another good season, although not quite up to recent lofty standards. They are in the hunt for a conference title again. They are the best football team in the state. Still, you see nothing in the local press like there had been over the past few years.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

They are a MAC team. A MAC team has to be undefeated to matter.

When they move to the Big 12 they'll get more coverage.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

They're bad this year. Their record is better than what they really are. They got 2 more losses in them this year, for sure.

On ESPN2 tonight though. Nothing else on, might as well watch them.

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AAC or MWC.

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They'd be better off staying in the MAC I think.

MWC may be ok but that travel schedule would suck.

I think NIU is trying to position itself to the Big 12 by saying "He, we can deliver Chicago!".

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Big 12 needs to deliver itself a network and CG first. Then I'm not sure NIU anyway.

Pretty big stadium improvements planned though.

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The championship game would take care of itself since they'd be adding two teams.

They still make good money. They just give a lot of it to Texas.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Question answered tonight. They look likes clowns. Up 14-0 4:00 into the game......tied at 14 after 1.

Stingily is absolutely killing Ball State all night, but let's just keep swapping out the QB's and having them pass, that's always good for a football team.
About to be tied at 28 late in the 4th.

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Never mind. NIU lucked out on defense, then wised up and fed #42 for another 14 point lead.

Ball game.

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7-2 is still 7-2. With a win over NU and a chance at the conference title, they deserves some publicity.

What is up with MAC attendance? It doesn't look like anyone attends these games. These are big state schools. I would figure they could pull 5,000 kids looking for something to do before going out at night and 5,000 local yokels to make a decent crowd for a nationally televised game.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Nobody goes to the games in Dekalb. The stadium is always half empty. Great idea to pour millions into a stadium that nobody goes to.

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The hope here enlies that with the slate of future opponents: Boston College, San Diego State, BYU, Utah, Maryland, etc. they can get some butts in the stands....

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GOB: "My God, what is this feeling?"
Michael: "Could it be love?"
GOB: "I know what an erection feels like, Michael. No, it's the opposite. It's... it's like my heart is getting hard."

Also Northern Illinois is still largely a commuter type school. Many kids might stay on campus but travel home for work or to see family/friends since it is so close. It's hard to draw crowds to any game (day or night) when people have to travel hour plus to get to it.

Yeah, the idea that it belongs in the Big 12, even in its enfeebled post-Nebraska/CU condition, is really kind of nuts. What NIU does is impressive because it's a mid-major. Bump them up and they'd be an embarrassment, like expanding Huskie Stadium when no one cares about the team.

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Will. Not. Happen.

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It really depends on how much the Big 12 wants or needs a championship game, because it is hard to make a case for anyone besides NIU and BYU to join. No other team really brings anything that isn't already in a top conference. NIU brings Illinois, and Chicago, just like Rutgers brings New Jersey and New York. Well, it was good in theory.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Nobody has mentioned the biggest reason for empty stands:

Weeknight games in November. NIU had 3 total Saturday home games this year. All in consecutive weeks.




Keep it. It's also been raining at 3 of the 4 MAC games this week. Nice.

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Nobody is there on the weekends. I bet attendance is higher for these week night games.

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I'll take that bet.

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Have you ever seen a big school's stadium during the rain? It's just as packed as sunny and 70.

No it's not.
The crowds are way bigger than MAC schools, but rain keeps people away everywhere. At night. In November.

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It's obvious what NIU needs is a retractable dome.

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And cheerleaders

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They need to move to Arlington Heights.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think it's pretty obvious they are eventually looking for a change in conferences. Nobody goes to the games most days right now, agreed.

The hope would be that visitor attendance, in addition to casual fan attendance, will automatically go up when the team is playing the likes of BC, Maryland, BYU, etc, on a Saturday - rather than a Kent St or Akron on a Tuesday night. And hopefully they stop scheduling worthless FCS schools also.

It's not hard to see that happening, although who knows how many actual numbers that results in.
It's all private and corporate $ anyway, who cares what they do with it. It's just business.

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they would fill the place more if they had better known opponents every week.

But then they would lose more. A bigger stadium did no good for basketball, nobody went and packed the place even in the first year of the convo center.

Like spanky said, it doesn't matter as it's being funded privately and they're trying to get into a bigger conference. I would say that it seems like they should fill the place more easily on the weekday nights, because everyone goes home Friday, (therefore party night is Thursday night) but it doesn't seem to be true...they had more people on the weekends. Perhaps because the towns come out for the game rather than the students.

You don't want students coming anyway if you can get the gen pop out. Students don't pay to get in.

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

There is no college football program that ever thinks this.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The basketball team is god awful, that's why nobody goes there. If they had a chance of even competing in their conference, or maybe putting together a miracle bid to the tournament, people might show up. But they have been stunningly bad as long as I can remember.

I took business classes with the star player of the team when I was there about 8 years ago. Your star player should not be studying marketing.

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Hoops team is supposed to be good this year. Allegedly.

No students go to the basketball games because the arena is closer to Rochelle than the east side of campus.

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Really? I bet Michigan does. And didn't Illinois get some heat a few years ago for marginalizing the student section to open better sections to paying customers? Not very WINTy, Illinois, not very WINTy at all!

Yeah, Northern Illinois basketball is a complete non-entity. You'd think they would try to capitalize on the recent dearth of good basketball in Illinois the way they did on the football side, but I think they got even worse.

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