DEKALB, Ill. – With today's announcement of North Dakota State joining the Mountain West Conference as a football-only member, NIU Vice President/Director of Athletics and Recreation, and current NACDA President, Sean T. Frazier reacts to the news and the landscape of college athletics.

Q: With today's announcement from the Mountain West, what were your first thoughts on the addition of North Dakota State?

I think it is an outstanding add. I think our commissioner, Gloria Nevarez, our presidents and leadership did a fantastic job. It makes us better as a league. From a commitment standpoint, everyone knows the brand of football North Dakota State plays, they are very competitive. We have roots up there with their head coach, Tim Polasek, who was here as an assistant at one point. Their legacy, their pedigree of football is fantastic. 

This was a big time move in a space where you need football brands that compete at a level that separate themselves from others. We have done that with North Dakota State, and it is going to be good for the league.

Q: With you serving as NACDA president in this current year, you have been involved in a lot of important discussions and helped shape the landscape of college athletics. Since NIU Joined the MW what has changed?

From a landscape perspective, a lot has changed. The College Sports Commission has come in, we are dealing with legislative issues at the Congressional level with the NCAA House settlement, Score Act and many other things, it doesn't stop. A lot of it has to do with getting guardrails in place around the new rules. There has been some positive, some negative and some undecided. As we continue to look at the bylaws, rules and regulations, we must continue to self-govern but also put things in that we can actually regulate. Putting rules in without governance is a waste of time and we have seen that time and time again. 

We must be true to ourselves, look ourselves in the mirror and say that we buy into regulations and guardrails for college athletics. Until we do that, we will continue to have the wild west.

Q: By adding North Dakota State, do you feel this is a good fit for the MW?  

They are an excellent fit, not just for the Mountain West but for any league in the country. They have proven themselves (on the football field); you don't win 10 national championships if you don't know what you are doing around football. They bring the football piece in a large way from a competitive standpoint, and they are a big add that separates us from a lot of the Group of Six leagues out there. I like that separation, it is a 'drop the mic moment' as far as our ability to compete in football and I think our commissioner, our presidents and our AD's did a great job on the addition.

Q: Can you talk about how the NIU Model is growing in popularity in today's landscape of college athletics?

This is a great example of that. North Dakota State plays the majority of its sports in the Summit League, now football moves to the Mountain West. They won't have to do what we did and find a new home (for their other sports), but they have done a really good job of operationalizing this move. This is a thing that we saw, it wasn't just Army, Navy and Hawaii, before they went full-time into the Mountain West. Conference expansion, for the most part, is due to college football. We need to address football and not affect regional, competitive balance for other sports. While we seek to find financial sustainability, we will be in a better financial situation for sustainability than if you just make a change because it looks good. 

North Dakota State is a good example of that, I think there are others that are looking at decoupling football from the rest of their sports. The bigger issue is that we want regional rivalries, that's why we joined the Horizon League in other sports and why other leagues had interest in us. We might have been one of the first in this new era, but that is fine, we like to lead, but the reality is that this gives our student-athletes and our institution the chance to do things the right way and be fiscally responsible at the same time. 

Q: Can you explain the importance of capitalizing on the momentum of opportunities like this and the areas NIU continues to pursue?

Phase one was changing conferences. Phase two is taking a look at revenue generation opportunities and increasing investment. Phase three is execution and making sure that our brand continues to grow and do things that it hasn't done before, athletically and academically. 

The first stage started back in 2021, when UCLA and USC went to the Big Ten. That was the watershed moment, and we went to work immediately to evaluate what does this look like for the future at NIU.

That manifested in a lot of different ways, but here we are in the Mountain West, but it was really about us being strategic and innovative to deal with the new college athletics landscape. 

The first step was the transition within the new model, decoupling football. Now the next step is maximizing the momentum of this. Looking at revenue generation, marketing opportunities and the other new revenue streams that are out there, private capital, etc. We have new assets and new inventory to be able to sell and now we have to look at investors who will invest in us. The last thing is to compete and to make sure that we can compete at these new levels and can fulfill the things we said we would do in this model. 

Q: Do you feel like this move by North Dakota State is a bit of validation for the move NIU made a year ago to decouple football?

It was no accident that we were ahead of this. I don't want to say that we knew this was coming, but we have good people here with good experience. When I was in the Big Ten, we added Nebraska, we added Rutgers, we added Maryland. Those were great backdrops for me to look at what was going on and understand the importance of innovation. To innovate based on the current times, there is no such thing as standing still, you are moving forward or you are moving backward. 

This was a reaction to the current state of affairs in college athletics. Yes, I do feel good that others see the same thing we see. I'm glad that we as an institution saw it before others because things are different now. There is a different price tag attached to what this looks like now, and we saw that with SMU moving to the ACC, you see it now with North Dakota State moving to the Mountain West. 

I'm quite sure that levels and numbers are going to change. It is good to be forward thinking with the ability to do things first, innovate and do the things that are going to help your institution be sustainable. I feel good about today. Tomorrow, I am already working on something different. 

Q: What other college landscape changes could be coming?  

The ebb and flow of college athletics is real. As you look at what is going on, the constant shifting and moving of things at a rapid pace necessitates that we have to be positioned to move swiftly. Thinking about innovation as it relates to revenue generation. The current landscape is a model that we all know is unsustainable. Throwing money at it and expecting that to fix it is not the way. We understand that we have the NCAA House settlement requirements, we have the transfer portal and other things that are happening. We see people that are leaving the profession because this is not what they signed up for, they are very concerned about what is happening and we do not have the consistent leadership at the national level that is getting us on the same page. 

I think this will reach a boiling point sooner rather than later. That is tough talk, but it is the reality. What we must do from a leadership standpoint is continue to be the best version of ourselves to be able to compete at the highest levels. I think there is going to be more defection from the industry, I think there will be changes with coaching and leadership, I think there will be changes at the NCAA level and with the Power Four and Group of Six. I think what we must do is to prepare for that shift because we have made a commitment to athletics and it would be a shame for us not to reap the rewards. I think our brand has gotten better, but there will be others looking to do different things to separate themselves. What we must do is to continue to be true to ourselves and then have some honest conversations about the future and how we are going to find a sustainable solution. 

Those changes are happening. They are going to happen sooner than later, and we are always trying to do the best for us and the version of us that is NIU. 

Q: What do you think about higher-resourced institutions poaching rosters/players from others? 

It is a tough thing because that is part of the new version of college athletics. I don't have a visceral response that others shouldn't be doing that. I don't like the illegal side of it, the middle of the night calling someone up, the nefarious things that are happening, that is ridiculous. 

We understand, we see coaches let go in week one or two. That necessitates that coaches have to get ahead of it and when they see that NIU can develop and assess talent at a high level, they say, 'I think I can go take those kids.'

I'm fine with that, but they have to pay us. They should be paying us some level of developmental fee so that we can keep the ecosystem going and supply that to college football. Back in the day it used to be junior colleges or some other division. Now it is the Group of Six institutions developing talent to be able to help the Power Four. I'm good with all of that. At the end of the day, we have to be true to ourselves and say, we are a developmental program. We were a developmental program before, we were just developing them for the NFL or life after football, now we are developing them for the NFL or the Power Four. 

I'm just saying, let's be fair. Don't do things behind the cloak of darkness. Come to the light and let's put a structure in place that compensates the institution, the student-athlete and the ecosystem so we are all better for doing it. We should come up with a plan, I would love to do that, and say this is what you are going to pay as the developmental fee. Then we can sell it to the student-athlete that we are going to develop them, and you can go someplace else, we are fine with that, but these are the rules of engagement. We put the rules together so that institutions like us can compete just like everybody else.

We are a developmental program; we can win championships at the same time that we are developing players. We must do it the right way and we have to lessen the institutions that want to do it the wrong way.

Q: What are the next steps for NIU?  

The biggest issue now is that we always have to be thinking about the next best thing. While we do that, we have to be the best version of ourselves. 

We make sure there are operational pieces in place for all our sports. It is about making sure that you do the best you can with the resources that you have, being fiscally responsible, being in alignment with your institution and community and then executing at a high level without excuses. We continue communication so that folks understand what we are doing and why we are doing it. These are all things that need to happen for NIU. And not just NIU, I would argue for any institution that has embarked on this journey of college athletics right now. 

I hear a lot of excuses, and I get tired of that, I'm at a point in my career that, I haven't seen it all, but I have experience at a high level. I think it is important for us to own this era of college athletics, adapt to it and make sure that we get it right, because it is not right, right now. At the end of the day, you have to do the best that you can with the resources you have and try to make this industry better than it currently is right now.