Jamestown College will not be playing football in the Frontier Conference, at least not for now.
The league's presidents tabled a vote on Wednesday on Jamestown College's application to join the Montana-based league in football only.
A unanimous vote of the conference's 10 presidents was needed for approval. Jamestown College had robust support from the heavy majority of the league's presidents and Frontier commissioner Kent Paulson, but at least one school indicated they would vote no, so the issue was tabled. When JC's application would be brought back up is unknown.
"I'm disappointed that this did not come to a vote, but we'll continue to press forward and make the best decisions we can for Jamestown College," said athletic director Lawrie Paulson. "The end result is that we'll actively pursue an independent schedule in football and that's how it's going to be for a while."
While not an ideal fit primarily because of geography and distance, the Frontier would provide Jamestown College with a concrete schedule. Finding games has been the biggest challenge for JC head football coach Bud Etzold, who put together a strong slate in 2011, and now will have to do it again for 2012.
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Etzold has been playing or coaching college football for over 30 years, but this was a new one.
"In my career I've had some exciting victories and some heartbreaking losses, but I've never been tabled before," he deadpanned.
Filling out a schedule for next year will be even more challenging than it was for 2011. The 4-team Dakota Athletic Conference will no longer exist after the 2011-12 season. Jamestown College, Valley City State, Dickinson State and Mayville State played each other twice this fall, and while not ideal, it was still six games.
Next year, Dickinson State joins the Frontier Conference, and has only one, possibly two open dates, leaving Jamestown College, Valley City State and Mayville State with two additional holes in the schedule, although JC still hopes to play DSU next year.
That means Etzold will have to scour the landscape for 10 games and it makes securing home dates even more difficult because teams that are already in conferences can't or don't want to play non-conference games away from home and certainly don't want to do it against a traditionally solid program like Jamestown College.
Etzold and the Jimmies have certainly been flexible. They've played at Wisconsin-Stout and Wisconsin-LaCrosse the past two seasons and are traveling to Chicago for a game Nov. 12 against the No. 1 team in the NAIA -- St. Xavier (7-0).
"It's hard to find something in our area. There are a whole bunch of colleges, but for one reason or another nobody will play us, or can play us," Etzold said. "I'm confident we can get 6 or 7 (games), so we have to go find 3 or 4 more."
Sun sports editor Dave Selvig can be reached at (701) 952-8460 or by e-mail at daves@jamestownsun.com
