True. Also, true that NDSU now has more scholarships, which does matter.
Let's bring SDSU back into this conversation, because they are still going toe to toe with NDSU with the same number of scholarships that UND has and you don't have to go back too far to when NDSU was also at 63 and had no problem out recruiting a lot of the G6.
There are a lot of people that follow this closely as well, I would argue that both of the XDSU's also have more 10+ offer guys, 5+ offer guys. The guys that have 1 or 2 other FCS offers they do have but call it the average recruit ranking is definitely higher than UND.
Goes without saying, any Schmidt class will be head and shoulders better than the best Bubba had to offer. Also thought last year's class was getting competitive with the XDSU's. NDSU just closes so well (for example). They'll have 6 spots left and fill it with 6 of the top players in the class.
Let's talk 2027 class. I brought up my concerns with the O-Line for weeks. They needed to get the OV's started sooner and in a week essentially all of the original targets were off the board. SDSU and Western Michigan owned UND. You know you're in trouble when the original offers (all have highly competitive offers from other school) are off the board and they are replaced with UND only or a Pioneer, NSIC level competing offers. Prior to last Friday, you had an uptick in 1 v 1 commits. The 2027 class started hot and I would say outperforming 2026, but it's getting watered down. You need to stack classes and stack positional groups.
Let's see how they close. We could very well be having a different conversation in a couple of weeks. There are still 10+ high-end guys that have offers. Start to string a few of those together and things will start to trend in the right direction.