Big Sky Conference Puns

https://twitter.com/C_Austin_Cox/status/1220529434891096065?s=20

All the regular season games for the Big Sky are done and predictions are now being accepted on Challonge! Predictions will close at 11am EST on 3/10, prior to the tipoff of the first tournament game.
In your submissions, please remember the following:

• Make your Challonge username the same as your Reddit (Or Discord if you don't have Reddit) username if possible.
  • When naming your bracket (if applicable) name it as such:
  • [Username's] Big Sky Tournament Predictions.

Good luck everyone!

UPDATE: I canceled Chris Sky and removed him from MoneroTopia.com. I was going to let the community vote but some powerful figures in the community are threatening to effectively cancel the entire event if the outcome is in Chris's favor. Not even MoneroTopia is safe from cancel culture. Once again, I have no horse in this race. I explained why I thought he would have been an interesting speaker to have. I absolutely have no political agenda that aligns with or would benefit from him attending. I simply wanted to throw a kick-ass Monero Event. OK, FINALLY, BACK TO FAMILY TIME!

It is very upsetting to see ErCiccione rally people against me as I work my ass off for the community. Some of the highly upvoted comments in ErC's reddit post make me want to puke. Especially considering I have been in talks with him and I am open to his concerns. Apparently, I am not working fast enough for him. You must understand that I have a lot on my plate and the fact that I did not respond to your email does not mean I was ignoring the issue. I requested you to email me in the first place, thus I am not ignoring it. I was trying to figure out how best to handle this, which takes time. It is a complex issue, thus all the drama in the comments. How about asking to help me, rather than attacking me? How about jumping on MoneroTopia yesterday and talking about it with me and the community live, rather than lurking in the background and mounting an attack? All are welcome to join, as you know. We are as inclusive "as the community allows".

Now for resolving the issue:

My reasoning for having Chris Sky speak was to hear from someone that faced censorship first-hand in pursuit of his cause and to hear his reasoning for why the world needs digital cash to support minority groups / opinions in the face of growing tyranny. That is why I thought he would be interesting to have. Plus he has a large following. I thought having a speaker outside the Monero community, that has a use-case for it, would help grow Monero. I was very clear about my reasoning for having Chris speak but unfortunately ErCiccione and co have twisted this all into "Douglas Tuman being a right winger with a political agenda". Makes you wonder who really has a hidden agenda.

My agenda is simply to help Monero and spread liberty. It is why I have invested thousands of hours into this project. It is why I ran for Congress. I want to see true digital cash prevail. Simple as

As to how far any given Big Sky Team will get in the playoffs this year:

Overall conference strength relative to the rest of the FCS:

Full data set can be found here.

This is the part of 2020 /r/FCS Kickoff Series, a preseason lead-up to the FCS Kickoff on August 29th. This week's focus is on the Big Sky Conference. A full schedule of postings can be found here.

Let's discuss the Big Sky Big Sky!

Feel free to discuss anything you'd like regarding the conference; whether it be your projections on how 2020 will play out, players you think will have a breakout year, who you think the best coach is, who has the best stadium, etc.

To help, below is a list of the conference's HERO Sports Preseason All-Americans to help initiate some discussion.

You can also check out the Get to Know the Big Sky post from last off-season if you'd like to learn a bit more about the conference. Please note that the information there is only correct up to the start of the 2019 season.

Click here to submit to submit your ballot.

Ballot will remain open through Wednesday night, and arbitrarily at some point Thursday morning I'll compile and post the results. This isn't going to be as controlled as the season poll, so I'd recommend getting your vote in by Wednesday to be safe in case I post it up early in the morning.

Feel free to discuss your thoughts, etc. below.

This is the part of 2020 /r/FCS Kickoff Series, a preseason lead-up to the FCS Kickoff on August 29th. This week's focus is on the Big Sky Conference. A full schedule of postings can be found here.

Welcome to the NCAA All Conference Series. This series will highlight the best NFL players to come from each NCAA conference. We'll dive into a bunch of schools and learn about some players you've never heard of before. Note that rookies are excluded, and players are counted as from the conference if their last year before entering the NFL was at that particular school while it was included in the conference. This means that schools formerly in the conference are also counted. Where I was unfamiliar with names, Pro Bowls and All Pros heavily swayed my choices.

Today we are looking at the Big Sky, named because many of the areas over which it resides consist of absolutely nothing except for dirt and sky. The conference was founded in 1963 to play basketball, adding football in 1968. Even as other sports were dropped over the years, the Big Sky remained loyal to the pigskin. Every school in the conference plays the sport, and while none are overly productive when it comes to producing NFL talent, there are still some solid players that have come out in recent years.

Just missed: QB John Frisz, WR Kendrick Bourne, OG John Gesek, ED Doug Betters, LB Patrick Onwuasor, CB DeShawn Shead, K Dan Car

Weber State is guaranteed a spot in the FCS playoff. With the win, coupled with Montana getting blown out by Montana state today will get the conference automatic qualifier and a first round Bye in the FCS playoffs.

news here

If you have only been watching the Utes, you're missing out on some great football. Weber received a no. 3 ranking in the playoff and will host at least 1 playoff game with a second should they win at home in Ogden.

EDIT: Full FCS brackets here. Weber State starts playoff Dec 7 in Ogden against the winner of Wofford/Kennesaw st. game.

This is a cop out by the liberal government of NSW so their faces aren’t the ones announcing the worst daily numbers in Australia for days on end.

This is a media/PR move and limits the ability of journalists to hold them to account and question the motives and actions that effect everyone in NSW.

The daily briefings will be replaced with online feeds from the health department and will only include gladys or brad when they deem fit.

The NSW govt needs to be held to account for this situation we are in and less ability to question them and their actions will not help in anyway.

Edit: spelling

2014: Ohio State 59 Wisconsin 0

2015: Michigan State 16 Iowa 13

2016: Penn State 38 Wisconsin 31

2017: Ohio State 27 Wisconsin 21

2018: Ohio State 45 Northwestern 24

2019: Ohio State 34 Wisconsin 21

2020: Ohio State 22 Northwestern 10

2021: Michigan 42 Iowa 3

Dominated men’s competition two years ago

Even men who identify as women typically acknowledge that they are “transgender women,” clarifying that they were not born women.

The Big Sky Conference didn’t even go that far when it honored a transgender woman as its “Female Athlete of the Week” in cross country. The student’s university was even more circumspect, simply identifying the transgender woman as “Athlete of the Week.”

June Eastwood, formerly known as Jonathan, “finished second in a field of 204 runners at the Santa Clara Bronco Invitational” and helped the University of Montana finish seventh as a team, the conference said in a press release. Both pages for “June” and “Jonathan” remain live on a University of Montana Athletics website (source of collage, above).

Eastwood’s men’s page appears to have been last updated in July 2018. It identifies Jonathan as a 2015 graduate of Belgrade High, names his parents and sisters, and says he’s a “women’s, gender and sexuality studies major.” June Eastwood’s page simply says the student graduated from Belgrade in 2015 and is majoring in philosophy.

Eastwood beat out eight other nominated competitors for Female Athlete of the Week, all of whom appear to be biological women judging by their official college headshots. The conference does not note Eastwood is transgender.

The University of Montana does not even note that the conference has male and female categories in its press release on Eastwood’s recognition.

It simply says Eastwood was named “Big Sky Conference Athlete of the Week” after beating San Diego State University’s Jenny Sandoval, who also appears to be a biological woman. (TheMissoulian published a condensed version of the press release without identifying it as such, instead crediting the ar

Big Sky Big Sky Conference a.k.a Big Sky, BSC

Established: 1963

Headquarters: Ogden, Utah

Commissioner: Tom Wistrcill

Website

History

The Big Sky was founded in 1963, conceived as a basketball conference to represent schools in the western states of Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Washington. The name originated in a novel written by A.B. Guthrie of Great Falls, MT, entitled “The Big Sky”.

Of the original six charter members, four have been continuous members with football programs (Idaho State, Montana, Montana State, and Weber State), while a fifth (Idaho) is a current active member with a football program within the conference. Unlike the other four, Idaho also did not participate in league play football from 1963 to 1965, until the other conference members demanded it of them. Gonzaga, the sixth charter member, had stopped fielding a football program in 1941.

From inception in 1963 until the division system was introduced in 1973, the Big Sky competed at the lower College Division of football when the divisions were split as University (Div. I) and College (Div. II and III) levels. The lone exception to this was Idaho, who despite competing in the conference otherwise played within the University Division (and later Division I before the subdivision split) from 1969-1977.

In 1973, when the numeric Division system was introduced, Big Sky football played within Division II (minus Idaho). When Division I was further split to Division I-A and Division I-AA in 1978, the Big Sky made the jump to DI into the DI-AA subdivision. The conference has remained there sense, and upon the naming convention change in 2006, the Big Sky remains an FCS conference with an autobid playoff spot for the conference champion.

Membership

Current Members

The Big Sky as a football conference currently consists of 13 member schools. In addition, despite being an independent for football as thy transition to the Missouri Valley Football Conference, the University of North Dakota plays a Big Sky schedule despite not being eligible for conference ranking.

https://imgur.com/U3j6BHw

First Team

F Mason Peatling (Eastern Washington) Graduated

G Sayeed Pridgett (Montana) Graduated

G Jonah Radebaugh (Northern Colorado) Graduated

G Harald Frey (Montana State) Graduated

G Holland Woods (Portland State) transfer to ASU

Second Team

G Jacob Davison (Eastern Washington)

G Jerrick Harding (Weber State) Graduated

G Kendal Manuel (Montana) Graduated

G Trevon Allen (Idaho) Graduated

G Bodie Hume (Northern Colorado)

Third Team

C Joshua Patton (Sacramento State) Graduated

G Cameron Shelton (Northern Arizona)

G/F Kim Aiken Jr. (Eastern Washington)

F Brooks DeBisschop (Northern Arizona) Graduated

F Jubrile Belo (Montana State)

Honorable Mention

F Bernie Andre (Northern Arizona) transfer to Vermont

G/F Cameron Oluyitan (Southern Utah) Graduated

C Sal Nuhu (Portland State) Graduated

G Cody John (Weber State) Graduated

G Izayah Mauriohooho-Le'afa (Sacramento State) Graduated

Published Previews To-Date

These are the various previews I'm aware of at the moment for the Big Sky Conference and individual teams in the Big Sky. If you know of any others, let me know and I'll add them in.

• BLEAV FCS Podcast

  • Their Big Sky Preview is not yet available, but check back on them since they're running an excellent series of season previews for every conference through the offseason
  • Weber State and Montana State Preview

• HERO Sports and B-Mac And Herd's FCS Podcast

  • Not yet available, but check back on their podcast as well as HERO Sports's preview series online, as they'll be doing a Big Sky Preview the week of June 15th

• Get the Ball Rolling

  • Weber State Preview
  • Southern Utah Preview

Big Sky Related Podcasts

This is compiled from our master podcast list. I'm sure I'm missing some, so if you know of any others (that updated at least once during the 2019 season), let me know and I'll add them.

I didn't bother to include multiple links to the various podcasts, but most of them I'm sure can be found on your favorite podcast platform or site.

Also, podcasts in BOLD I know have at least some type of tie to /r/FCS. If you know of any others that do, let me know and I'll be sure to note and emphasize them!

https://twitter.com/RossDellenger/status/1466847592936058889