Montana State head coach Jeff Choate believes North Dakota State's decade-long run of dominance in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision isn't good for the college game. He's also advocating to play semifinal playoff games at a neutral site to take away the home-crowd advantage a stadium like the Fargodome can offer.

Other than that, the coach's weekly press conference was pretty vanilla.

Talk about a columnist's dream.

Speaking with the Bozeman, Mont., media on Monday, Dec. 16, as a run-up to his team's FCS semifinal game in Fargo against the Bison this Saturday, Choate was asked whether NDSU's nearly decade-long dominance of the division is good for college football.

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Choate didn't hesitate.

"No," Choate said. "I think we all have to play the same game. But it is what it is. These are the rules we're playing by. I hope we can make it more competitive."

Montana State played NDSU in the Fargodome last year in a second-round playoff game. The Bison won 52-10 in an utterly one-sided game, beginning another playoff run to another national championship. NDSU has won seven of the last eight national titles, is 126-8 since the start of the 2011 season and is currently on an FCS-record, 35-game winning streak. The Bison also had a 33-game winning streak from 2012-14.

"I'd like to make it more competitive. I'm sure they love it. But it's the same storyline every year, right?" Choate said.

The coach specifically brought up cost of attendance, an NCAA rule that allows schools to pay student-athletes for their college expenses beyond what's covered by scholarships. COA covers things like transportation, supplies and daily expenses. NDSU offers full cost of attendance to its football players, which is a recruiting advantage when going against schools that don't have the same benefit to offer.

(Listen to Mike McFeely and Bozeman Chronicle sports editor Colton Poll discuss the NDSU-Montana State game, and coach Jeff Choate's comments, in this podcast:)

The Bobcats play in the 13-team Big Sky Conference. Choate said he didn't know of any Big Sky football program that offers full cost of attendance.

"If you have one group that's offering $3,334 a year cash to these kids and another group isn't, the scholarship isn't apples to apples," Choate said. "So are we really playing on the same level?"

Choate is correct in that offering full cost of attendance is an edge for a school like NDSU. It's not an uncommon refrain for other schools to grumble about NDSU's advantage in what coaches refer to as "resources." That's coachspeak for money. South Dakota State's John Stiegelmeier raised the point earlier this season when he said the Bison have a $1 million advantage over the Jackrabbits. Youngstown State's Bo Pelini also brought up "resources" when asked about NDSU's dominance.

But where Choate and others miss the mark is that every level of college football has its "haves" and "have nots." No two programs are operating with the exact same level of funding, facilities, staff, fan support, booster club donations or geographic location. Ohio State spends far more money on football than does Minnesota. San Diego State spends more than Nevada. Montana State spends more than Portland State.

At the top of FCS, second-ranked James Madison has a total athletic budget of $51.7 million, according to USA Today's database. No. 1-ranked NDSU's is listed as $28.1 million.

The differences in FCS are striking, even without cost of attendance figured in. The Pioneer Football League does not offer athletic scholarships. Patriot League schools can offer the equivalent of 60 scholarships, just below the FCS limit of 63. Many schools, even in conferences that allow a full allotment of scholarships, aren't fully funded.

Choate said the issue extends beyond FCS and that having the same handful of teams make the College Football Playoffs every year is bad for the game, too.

(Watch Montana State coach Jeff Choate's press conference:)

"You can pick the same four teams and they are always in it. I don't think that's good for college football, either. They have to examine it," Choate said.

"It's always better for the fan bases, for the game as a whole, when there is parity," Choate said. "I think that's one of the things you see with the NFL. People are kind of sick of the Patriots, obviously, but there is more parity in the NFL. That's because everybody is playing by the same rules, everybody is playing by the same salary cap."

In his opening remarks, Choate also raised the atmosphere at the Fargodome as a perhaps unfair advantage for NDSU. The crowds at Bison games are usually larger and louder than many other FCS games and the dome contains the noise, often making it difficult on visiting teams. That's particularly true in semifinal playoff games, when Bison fans can sniff the barbecue in Frisco, Texas, home of the FCS championship game.

"I'm advocating for us to do these semifinal games at a neutral site and do a doubleheader. I think that would be better for everybody involved," Choate said.

That would be an almost impossible sell from the standpoint of the NCAA, which gets a cut of ticket revenue from playoff games. NDSU's game against Montana State is sold out at the 18,700-seat Fargodome. The other semifinal, Weber State at James Madison, will likely draw a crowd of at least 15,000.

But it makes for good columnist grist during the week of a semifinal playoff game. Hopefully Choate will be equally chatty after Saturday's game, regardless of the outcome.