The Sicatoka

I'd argue the thin D is now. There's two freshmen minimum every night. I expect to lose T Poolman early to WPG, so lose Ausmus and Poolman for Bast and Evers. I could see next season's defense being Wolanin, Shaw, Johnson, C Poolman, and Peske. That's one freshman most nights. I'm more interested in finding some scoring (because I don't see Boeser still at UND in 2017-18).

Ah, but you miss the key: A handoff involves two people contacting the ball at once. Relook at the video from the side angle; the ball was moving toward the line and airborne with no one touching it if even just momentarily. That's a forward pass. Under the rules as written today, the officials got that one right.

The side view shows he had two hands on it and stopped the momentum of the ball and then reversed the momentum back toward the line. I'd say he had control (hence possession) of the ball.

If it wasn't designed, why was Fiedler standing in the back of the end zone instead of blocking for the run?

I threw this out there earlier this year: 2. 5. 11. 8. Ausmus, MattyRinks. Tucker P, Simonson, Olson, Pogo, Cam Eleven sophomores Eight freshmen

Who the < bleep > is still running XP!

And we were worried about QB depth. Now we have TWO guys with the passing line of: 1-1, 2 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT

Allegra Coleman leads their cheer team.

Bye State's team captain is named Tuttle. Yes, Capt. Tuttle*. No photo available. *That'll draw out the M*A*S*H fans.

Nobody "avoided" anything. The BSC schedule-makers put out the schedule and that's who UND has to play.

Does "SDSU 28, USD 21" say more about SDSU or USD right now?

Sagarin and Massey seem (at least to my eye) have a lot of "prior year" weight early in the season. By this point in the season it should be gone; however, that's my only explanation for where UNI keeps showing up ... or are they this year's "quality losses" Western Illinois.

What's more likely this weekend: NDSU losing at South Dakota or EWU losing at Portland State NDSU is going to come in hating USD from last season; Portland State will be pulling out all the stops. There's NDSU's #1 seed*. *And #1 NDSU and #8 UND in Fargodome.

Arguing EWU/NDSU 1/2 matters not all that much. They'll be spaced that a potential rematch would be in Frisco, TX. The difference between 3 and 4 isn't all that great.

So, what'd Kolpack think of UND's schedule?

The key takeaway from Miller's travel budget article: You play distant road conference games and near non-conference games or You play near road conference games and distant non-conference games. And if that's the same basic pool of opponents (conf or non-conf) that'll cost roughly the same.

Epic Halloween costume. Made Walsh Hall proud.

'Member Cameron Peterka? 'Member Peterka, then Jeff Glas, then Brandon Hellevang, then Zeb Miller? 'Member the run of great kickers? I 'member.

Who's sending that one to the NCAA? They don't like words or images disparaging American Indians at their playoff sites. (I wonder if that played into Breciani's recent words ... )

The issue is in the public eye. The civil authorities will deal with it. The issue is in the public eye. Coach Schweigert will deal with it as well. (And the people that hire Bubba will be watching him.) I'm not concerned about how this will be handled. It'll be done right with the right consequences.

If this "go to MVFC and Summit" really does come down I want an "Idaho" clause in each contracts (meaning MVFC and Summit). Quite simply: That's just basically the conference passing the exist fees on through to UND. If this is the MVFC looking to cover YSU or WIU bailing the MVFC isn't hurt. If this is a play to stick UND down the road (say the MVC comes calling), well, a couple million bucks buys a lot of butthurt salve.

The radio crew was just getting into their tempo of strictly saying "UND" or "North Dakota" (and not the dreaded five-letter "S" word). They were still slipping. (I'm pretty sure on-air folks and producers had side bets about how many mistakes they'd make in a night. ) Now you expect them to just seemlessly switch to saying "Fighting Hawks"? Doing radio is hard. Doing live radio is harder. Doing live play by play radio is harder yet. Now toss in words that were part of your normal dialog and cantor for decades that you can no longer say. The only guy with any advantage is the new Midco guy who never was on air saying the old name because he's new this year. The rest are having to over-think everything they say. I commend the on air folks for doing as well as they are.

We should be smarter on the chippy stuff after last weekend.

FIFY.