HEY! We encourage you to listen to this show as part of the "Happy Hour with John Gaskins" daily podcast, which you can find at SiouxFallsLive.com, and most podcast platforms like the one you find here! So, if you enjoy the topics Matt & John cover, you'll get those topics, plus relevant local guests, every Monday through Thursday on Happy Hour... so we highly recommend you check that out!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

Go ahead an unwrap our Happy Hour with John Gaskins early Christmas present to you — nothing much different than any other Tuesday with Sioux Falls Live's Matt Zimmer on the show.

No "Top 5 Christmas Movies" or "Most Overrated Christmas Songs" lists, or "Egg Nog — Yea or Nay?"No "Year in Review" chronological stroll down memory lane of the biggest sports stories of 2025. (That's for tomorrow's Happy Hour — our Christmas Eve present!) 

Instead, Zim and the host give the gift that keeps on giving the whoooooooole year for the last five years of the weekly "Nobody's LIstening Anyway" podcast — brutal honesty and candor (with some humor) about the most intriguing current sports topics of the Sioux Empire and South Dakota.

In this week's case, yet another discussion about what the future may look like for both NDSU and SDSU in college football, thanks to the latest internet whispers about the Bison's "playing footsie" with the Mountain West Conference.

While nothing has been confirmed as fact, it's an open door to discussing which level of football is more desirable for NDSU and SDSU — the FCS or FBS.Did the humiliation of James Madison and Tulane by Power Four schools with far more resources and NIL money signal the beginning of the end to a "seat at the table" for the "rest of the FBS" beyond the Big 10, SEC, ACC, and Big 12? It certainly appears so.

If that's the case, do the Bison and Jackrabbits really have a reason to move up? Well, maybe if there is ever the splitting of P4 from Non-P4, creating a new sub-level Div. I fusion of Group of Six FBS programs with some of the more established FBS-ish operations in the FCS like NDSU, SDSU, Montana, Montana State, and USD. As usual, Zim moves to the beat of his own drum on this topic.

Then, a dive into the splashiest early pre-transfer portal headlines — heavy hitters who have announced they are staying at SDSU (Chase Mason, Quentin Christensen) and leaving USD (L.J. Phillips and Larenzo Fenner).It isn't just a conversation about the retention of players, but the types of players the two South Dakota programs recruit. Nuance is necessary and provided.

Nuance would have been nice as rumors exploded about the possibility that Kalen DeBoer would ever leave Alabama for Michigan. Zim, a former teammate of DeBoer's in South Dakota amateur baseball who also covered DeBoer's five-year run of NAIA dominance at the University of Sioux Falls, sheds his own light on watching the speculation ignite in a ball of flames during the Crimson Tide's 17-point comeback playoff win at Oklahoma.

Stocking stuffer — a glimpse into a weekend of South Dakota State's women's basketball that featured the two marquee games on the non-conference schedule within four days of each other. Duke and Texas both soundly beat the Jackrabbits. What might this mean in March for SDSU's possible NCAA Tournament seeding? Is it too early to just assume the Jacks will reach the Big Dance, which feels like an annual rite of passage?    

Stocking stuffer II — Now what for Minnesota Vikings fans like Zim if J.J. McCarthy is done for the season with his new hand injury? It seemed like tracking the quarterback's progression to see if there is something to be optimistic about in 2026 has likely been replaced with the QB quandary that has stunted the team's growth for most of our lives.

Merry Christmas. Bah Humbug!