UND08

You know what's fun? Lining up across from your opponent and kicking their you know what until the whistle...then getting up and doing it again. When they start to adjust you hit them on the edges or over the top. Always staying one step ahead and imposing your will. Over-reliance on trick plays is for teams that aren't as talented as their opponent. It doesn't matter if we do it in the I formation with 22 personnel or some shotgun formation spreading the field...at some level football is football! I love the inside zone running game we seem to be having some success with using Ziebarth and Skokna to spell...if you can get 4-5 yards a pop running that...then lean on it!

I'll be in Brookings on Saturday...forecast is mid 80s...gross! I'm built for 55-65 in the fall...haha! This is a big one for UND...lose it and look bad doing it and the restless voices start to amplify considerably...and NDSU becomes a "must win"... Play well and all the good things we all want for this team is possible. It's hard to be confident in that given our past performances in "big" games under Bubba...but I remain optimistic nonetheless! Run the football...make plays on the edge and in space...limit big plays, and play clean on special teams and we'll be fine! We just need to see it done in a game of this magnitude!

Yeah the Mussman era is completely flushed from my memory...I want nothing to do with any of those days...and I don't care if the talent was better...the product was atrocious...

I'm not saying this because I want to move on from any coaches at this point (I'm also not saying that I don't want to move on for what it's worth)...but we don't have a single coaching staff member who has been a full-time coach at a D1 program other than Western (woof) and Southern Illinois. Pawlak at least spent some time in a big program...and he's been solid! That lack of diversity leads to a feel of "inbreeding" in the coaching staff. I know it's not a cure-all or a guarantee of success...a lot of coaches at lower levels can flat out coach, and a lot of your lower level position coaches are pretty green. But it is hard to find a lot of new ideas to bring to the table if you've never been anywhere to see things done a different way. At least Kirkwood played for the Gophers and Pawlak won a MAC championship at NIU. Compare that to Idaho (mentioned here) Eck - played at Wisconsin, coached at 8 different D1 schools Schleusner - Coached at 3 d1 schools (WIU when they were good, UND, SDSU) Aurich - USD and NSIC (least diverse resume I saw) Ford (RB and ST) - UW Sutton (TE/Recruiting) - San Diego OC Booth (OL) - Temple/BC/CSU Lose (DL) - Portland State/Wash St. Franks (DB) - Wash St./ISU Linehan (WR) - San Diego St.

I would hardly call Idaho the flagship in the state of Idaho when it comes to football recruiting! Look at the 300 mile radius... 72 miles to Cheney, WA 9.4 miles to Pullman, WA 242 miles to Missoula, MT 295 miles to Boise, ID Arguably more competitive than UND's D1 landscape. 81 miles to Fargo, ND 265 miles to Brookings, SD

I'm not sure why Coach Annese at Ferris hasn't moved on yet...but if I was an AD he'd be on my perpetual short list!

I'm late to the party here...and not trying to hedge anything...but if we can win 1 of Boise/NDSU/SDSU and take care of business in the rest of our games that would be a positive step in the progression in my book. That's 9-2, and assuming things play out how they normally do would earn us a seed in the playoffs. That would be significant improvement over 7-4/6-5. The team is capable...I'd LOVE to see it! Boise is going to be tough. I wish they'd have beaten UCF. They can't afford to sleep walk through this week being 0-2...it'll take our best effort to beat them! SDSU in Brookings will also be a tough challenge. I think we can beat them...but it'll take a great effort. I'm just a fan who's along for the ride...but I have tickets for Brookings and I'm extremely excited to be there! Last time I was there was the 2003 Joe Wilson miraculous comeback game...so it's been a minute haha! Then there is NDSU...at home...bottom line...in order to get where we all want to go WE NEED TO WIN THAT GAME!

In 2022 UND averaged 147.6 yards rushing per game. In 2016 UND averaged 208.4 yards rushing per game. In 2015 UND averaged 240.5 yards rushing per game. I wasn't saying our rushing offense hasn't been good...but we are much more balanced and more multiple offensively now. Our passing offense pre-Danny was much more vertically focused off of play-action (I don't recall Rudy ever calling a screen pass once during his reign in Grand Forks). Nowadays a lot of our passing game is an extension of the running game (which makes up for the drop in yards above imo)...that said we aren't built like we used to be and one of the casualties (and there have been very few in my mind) has been the vertical passing game. That said...with Eliador in the mix I think we'll see more of it this year than we have at any point under Danny's command of the offense.

I have long thought that our troubles hitting on deep balls the last few years boiled down to two factors: 1 - Lack of a dominant running game to bring safeties into the box. 2 - Lack of receivers who can get separation and run by defenders. Eliodor might be the first receiver we've had in awhile that could do this. We were much better at this in the (gulp) Rudy era...mainly because we had two RBs (Oliviera and Santiago) who demanded so much attention! Sometimes I think about what our offensive production would have looked like if Danny was our OC running this system in 2015-16...it makes me sad if I'm just being honest!

I mean...I wouldn't go conflating what I said with the mindset that Mayville State could beat NDSU...but in the past there have been NAIA schools that have beaten mediocre/bad FCS schools before. And when the FCS school is in essence a D3 school...I'd argue it should be expected.

I seem to remember another FCS team losing to a top tier NAIA program at home in the last 15 years...seems to me that NAIA program had a great coach that's moved up a level or two since... I'm not going to put a lot of stock in our top offensive ranking after two games...it doesn't mean much. What I do know is this...we have yet to struggle to score points, and generally that's not our problem unless we retrench into our shell and play "not to lose." Make the plays we are supposed to make, attack the edges, get the ball into our playmakers hands and chew up yards/clock and we'll give ourselves a chance offensively to be in this game. If we make a bunch of mistakes it'll be a long afternoon on the smurf turf...

Context? As in we played Drake game 1? We are two games in... most FCS teams have likely played at least 1 gimmie game...and many have played 1 paycheck game. We play our paycheck game on Saturday. These kinds of things even out as the season moves along...Tommy was a nearly 70% completion guy last year...that's pretty dang good. We all know his limitations...it's on the coaching staff to gameplan to his strengths. They've done that to my satisfaction thus far. If that fails to continue...y'all will hear about it on here, I am sure! Tom Miller isn't an opinion writer, and this wasn't an opinion piece. If you want to add context...you are free to do so! I'm sure the Kaminski family would love to hear it!

First...that last drive for NDSU was an offensive football masterpiece! I hate them but I love watching that drive to this day...almost brings tears to my eyes! Second...that NDSU team was one of the best to ever play at this level. We have a good team...but not at that level. What I want to see this weekend is a team that's going to go to Boise and give them their best shot! No playing it close to the vest all the time...play our game...attack the edges and give our playmakers a chance to make some plays. Bend but don't break on defense and give us a chance to win. I don't want to see Tommy's final stat line be something like 20-24 for 117 yards. That won't get it done. We need to take some chances...and if we go down we might as well go down swinging.

Couldn't have said it any better myself! I really like the way Ziebarth runs the football...I get the whole "keeping our backs fresh" and distributing carries thing...but he's my bell cow if it was me calling plays!

There are two camps a person can be at with this one: One is the historical camp: If you look at the intricacies of "Bubba Ball", then this game will likely be close, as that's just how these types of games tend to go. We typically get a bump in "Bubba Ball" games playing at home...and on Potato Bowl the crowd should be into it. 34-31 would be a decent prediction given our perceived offensive strengths/defensive weaknesses. The other camp is the "Great Expectations" camp: This team is better up front on both sides of the ball than it has been in a bit, and our offense has the ability to score points on anyone. We may not have sacked the Drake QB this weekend, but he was running for his life quite a bit. I'd like to see us hit a couple big plays down the field...I feel like we can...and we should be able to do that. With an amped up crowd at home that should only help our defense. 41-24 with NAU scoring a late TD would be appropriate here. I find myself much closer to the "Great Expectations" camp than the historical. There's nothing wrong with thinking this year we take the next step. Hell I've heard more talk about that this year from the team and media than I have in quite some time. A clean, definitive win is what should be expected if we are going to make that happen...and I think we will get it done this weekend! 34-24...late TD for NAU making it look closer than the game is.

Game is in Grand Forks...that's a significant difference maker in my book. UND 34-NAU 24 I feel like this should be a 41-14 type of game...but I'm not sold on UND's defense in passing situations. Tommy and Belquist et al. have a big game. Teeder had a great analysis of what NAU did well...but they also gave up 7 yards per rush and 15 yards per completion...I like our odds to break a few tackles and make some big plays on offense.

NDSU will be a contender until they prove that they aren't on the field imo...

I don't think it takes a detailed presentation to figure out that replacing Portland State on your schedule with SDSU will help attendance. That said that wasn't the focus of my original point. My point remains that if UND is staring down 6-5 the bandwagon will have a lot of room. We've seen that happen before...it'll happen again. I'm cautiously optimistic that that won't be an issue this year, but others aren't...and an argument can be made to justify why that is the case.

Show me that it is? The good of it is if we take care of business in our big games at home this fall that growth will happen!

No agenda here...but 54-45 since 2014 isn't good enough for me. I believe that we are doing the right things to right the ship...and 8-3 is the expectation this year. It's not a bad thing to have expectations. If they aren't met...there will be empty seats in the Alerus for non-SU games...that's a fact! Also...you don't think having 3-4 conference opponents within driving distance has led to increased ticket sales? That and having NDSU/SDSU on the schedule every year? I'm not so sure that ticket sales have gone up because there are more diehard UND fans. It's more so that opponent interest is higher.

Couple thoughts: Overall I like where we are at. My hope in a couple of these positions is that we are so deep that guys will rotate in that aren't listed depending on game situations (D-Line would certainly be my focus here). I'm a still concerned about our OLBs/Safeties. Like a few on this board...I've seen Kauppinen get toasted enough times to not have a high trust level in his play in passing downs. We need to be better at OLB as well...hopefully coaching gets this done (and I'm not sure if "simplifying" is enough). As to a couple of points made here today: 1 - I'm a firm believer in the best player plays philosophy. If I was a player I wouldn't be too happy if I was sitting in order to "spring a surprise" on Boise or SDSU...college football careers are too short. You can always play the other guys after you get a lead or rotate them in...(Oh and I highly doubt Kaminski at this point is better than Tommy so that poster you can give it a rest...haha!). 2 - I know everyone is sick of the criticisms of how the program is run...but they continue to be forced down our throats for a reason, namely that many on here don't think we've done enough to address them. I'm going to give the program the benefit of the doubt...but if we're staring down 6-5/7-4 by October...it's only going to get louder! And those staunchly unconditional defenders of the status quo will continue to have more and more space to roam in an increasingly empty Alerus Center...

We are talking about the preseason #8 team in the non-scholly Pioneer League...I like the 4 QB's idea...but 44-3 isn't good enough for me. For once I'd like to see us hang 60 on someone! That said...44-3 is probably more likely knowing how our games typically go.

They don't need it...their seats are way nicer at Lokken!

Be careful what you wish for...

I actually agree with the coaching staff's rationale on this. EVERYTHING starts up front...both sides of the ball...