VERMILLION – Official word that the University of South Dakota will join the Missouri Valley Football Conference saw the light of day Thursday, ending a whirlwind of phone calls and meetings in which a lot was decided in a very short time.
The announcement brought a sudden close to talk of USD joining the Big Sky Conference, and it also guaranteed the resumption of the Coyotes’ rivalry with South Dakota State, which belongs to the Missouri Valley for football and the Summit League for other sports.
USD will join the Summit League in 2011-12 and the MVFC in 2012-13.
“We kept coming back to the fact that this is what everyone wanted six months ago,” USD athletic director David Sayler said. “They wanted a combination of the Summit and the Missouri Valley for football. We realized this was a better opportunity, and we cemented it after going home and sleeping on it.”
Thursday’s press conference included a moment where MVFC commissioner Patty Viverito walked to the podium to repeat – in front of media and fans – the offer to join the league that she’d extended to USD for real less than two days earlier.
USD president Jim Abbott then rose to applause from the faithful, thanking Viverito.
“On behalf of the staff, students and particularly the athletic department at the University of South Dakota,” Abbott proclaimed, “we accept your offer.”
Formalities aside, if the president had stood at that point and said USD was instead taking the Big Sky offer, it would have been only slightly more odd than what actually transpired in the two days previous to Thursday’s announcement.
As recently as Monday night, it appeared nearly certain that the Coyotes were headed for the Big Sky, which had openly courted USD for the last two weeks and had accepted Southern Utah and North Dakota as new members Monday.
The situation began to change dramatically very quickly, however, with a phone call from Viverito to USD athletic director David Sayler on Tuesday morning.
With North Dakota headed for the Big Sky, USD was momentarily not part of an I-29 tandem headed west. Viverito thought she could sell her athletic directors and university presidents on the idea of a 10th team joining the league for 2012 and requested the opportunity to try to get it together.
“I didn’t have the votes to get an 11-team league approved with North Dakota as part of the package,” Viverito said. “It had nothing to do with the worthiness of those other schools. It wasn’t until I learned through the press that USD and UND weren’t tethered as a package deal, that I knew USD was an independent actor in this, that could we take a look at the 10-team model.”
Sayler and Abbott told Viverito that she had until 5 p.m. Tuesday to deliver on what she’d said was possible – a unanimous agreement from athletic directors and university presidents that extending an offer to USD was the right thing to do.
With USD’s Great West football home disbanding after next season, the Coyotes were set to leave for the Big Sky, according to many reports. Though support for USD among MVFC football coaches had been public dating back to last summer, official encouragement from MVFC officials had not existed until Tuesday.
“Commissioner Viverito was very forthcoming throughout this process,” Abbott said. “She told us she had to check with the ADs and the presidents. At that point, I felt if they really wanted us, they could make it happen quickly. And they did.”
It was at 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday, 15 minutes before the deadline Abbott had given Viverito, that the invitation arrived via e- mail.
“Because we’d been talking about this since August, I knew I could get USD as a 10th team approved,” Viverito said. “I was more concerned with getting a hold of everyone in time.”
The dramatic turnabout momentarily obscured the more lasting news – that USD and SDSU would be returning to competition in football. In addition, future Summit League basketball games jeopardized by talk of the Big Sky were going to actually happen.
“It gets things going again,” USD football coach Ed Meierkort said. “It’s going to help recruiting for all schools. It’s going to help financially for all schools. To me the big winner today is the state of South Dakota and this region.
“Rivals should play. That’s why they’re called rivals. Now it’s on. This will be a lot of fun for the fans and the coaching staffs. When we’re going out trying to raise money for a new basketball arena and renovate the dome, this is going to help.”
Sophomore Coyote linebacker Tim Marlette, a former Washington standout, didn’t hear the news until Thursday afternoon. There was no doubt, in hindsight, what he and his teammates thought about the turn of events.
“The fact that we would have the opportunity to play State if it went this way was always in the back of my mind,” Marlette said. “It’s such a huge rivalry. My dad went to school down here, and he always tells me I have no idea what it was like back in the day. Now that we’re in the conference, I’m going to find out.”
The conversation among the sophomores on down accelerated quickly, Marlette said, particularly among the South Dakotans.
“Coach (Adam) Breske came into our linebacker meeting and said it was going to be the Missouri Valley – that was some big news,” Marlette said. “I talked to Will Powell (O’Gorman) and Quintin McMartin (Washington), and we’re all pretty pumped up about it.”
USD was facing a $500,000 buyout if it left the Summit League, according to league commissioner Tom Douple. But Abbott indicated that the school would not have been forced to pay the full amount.
“We were pretty confident we would not have been in that position (to pay the full buyout),” he said. “But it pleases me that now we’re not going to have to worry about it.”
The dalliance with the Big Sky made for a tense few weeks for some Summit League officials. Douple had seen a scheduled site visit to North Dakota canceled last week and appeared to be on the verge of losing another school, one that had already committed itself more than a year earlier.
“In athletics, whether you’re coaching or an administrator, you better have Plan A and Plan B and Plan C already lined up,” Douple said. “We got to halftime and it looked like we had to make some adjustments. It was last minute here, but the game’s not over until the final buzzer.”
