UND08

I have my fair share of concerns with how things are currently going with our program...but I feel like we've adjusted as well as we could hope for with the portal! To add the USD receiver and two drop down DL (one a 300 lb NG thank you Jesus!)...has me encouraged! Good work to our staff for addressing some needs and using the portal as a source of opportunity. Of course...these things don't pan out until they do...but to get these types of kids signed is a good first step imo!

This is very encouraging!

I wrote the checks...as a consumer I've decided it's no longer worth it. I can follow the team with a similar fan experience for a lot less $$$. Call me a bandwagon fan...call me whatever you want...but I'm not Elon Musk, and at some point potential needs to be realized to make my investment worth it. Also beyond that, UND doesn't really do a dang thing to engage donors that live more than 100 miles from the RRV. It is what it is on that front but my local university's foundation department has taken the time to build a relationship with me, and they get my money now. I will say I like the portal additions we have today...the portal seems to have been a net "W" for us this year. Hopefully we can keep adapting.

You missed the memo MH...you're not allowed to be a UND fan and publicly question how things are done with the program! We're just supposed to coach the same way, recruit the same way, administer the program the same way...and expect different results will just come! We have to #TrustTheProcess for ten years and it'll eventually pay off! Or at least that's what I've been told both here and on social media...

Tough break...but I'll never fault a kid for choosing a higher level opportunity. If anything, I hope we are encouraging...if it doesn't work out for him in Lincoln, I'd hope he has a positive memory of our program when the portal opens...

Kennedy was a goofy freaking dude...but as time goes on his legacy at UND will be more and more positive. At least he had some stones on him...in the end he got chased out of town for it. But sometimes what is best isn't what is popular. I think we see that a lot at UND...

Sorry been a busy week at work so I missed a couple days here. First...I started the term gray hairs...I'll own it and I'll double down on it. Look at the average lower level seat holder between the 40s...it's not a young bunch. That's not abnormal...older folks have more $$$ to shell out. If you took offense to the term, well sorry I guess. I didn't mean it in a derogatory sense. Second...The core UND folks get so damned defensive about anything critical it drives me nuts. In my line of work, if my company was happy with the status quo we would get buried eventually over time by competitors who are bigger, better, and richer than we are. Many of my coworkers are ok with that. Well ya know what? I AM NOT! I don't understand why it's so damned vilified on a message board of all places to question why we can't do better?!? I don't always agree with UND-FB-FAN on many things, but I think him and I are on the same page here. I think what's worse than the shortcomings is the apathy that gets displayed from many of the "Pledge Your Loyalty 100% of the time" folks. I will tell you this, I'm not rich, but I was donating $2500 per year plus my season tickets on an annual basis. I discontinued this year. Multiple hour road trips just aren't worth it for me to follow this team the way it's currently run. It's easy enough for me to buy single game tickets, and I actually made it to all but two home games this year. Flame me for my lack of loyalty if you want, but people vote with their feet. I figure if I decide to get back in, I won't have any problem buying season tickets again given the apathy that's set in both at UND and nationwide. Do I have some ideas? Perhaps...but that's not my job. There are people in administration that are in charge of those types of things...and I'd like to see them earn their paycheck every once in awhile. Maybe this is what's best for UND sports, and if it is I won't question it. But as a consumer it's not a product I feel the need to consume at a high dollar amount.

Finding other things to do I'd guess. The days of blind loyalty are over...you have to compete for those people and have something to offer. Doesn't matter if it's a workplace or a football arena.

1 - When I think of our program...the first word I think of is "stagnant." Nothing changes...the band plays the same songs, the gray hairs sit in the same seats, the coaching philosophy hasn't changed (with the exception of Danny who provided some excitement for awhile), and (lately) our ability to show up in big games completely disappears. Now to be fair I look at NDSU/SDSU and see "stagnant" as well, but for very different reasons. Their fans take their success for granted. They stay home from playoff games because they assume they will win convincingly. It's been that way for 7-8 years now, and believe me when I say it KILLS ME TO SAY THAT! I'd LOVE to stay home from any game because I knew UND was going to win by 3+ scores...but their track record doesn't allow for that...even against low level D1 teams like say Drake. My wife didn't go to UND, and I told her about how wild the atmosphere was when I was in college and was excited to show her that again. It took five years of us going to games until we had an atmosphere like that again (2021 NDSU). How do we fix it? I honestly don't know...and that scares me...because maybe we can't. Like you said, we dug ourselves a hole with the D1 move. I'm guessing a lot of folks on here have long since digested their crow on that subject. 2 - Are we a bad program? Absolutely not. I'd say we are in the top 25% of FCS. But we lag a long way behind NDSU...and that gap isn't closing very fast (if at all). Is it fair to compare what we've done to NDSU (and to a lesser extent SDSU)? No...but that's the world we live in. UND is a great place. It served me very well. But if we are going to recruit the same kids, and use the same schemes, and coach the same way as we did last year...then why would I think we'll be better than this year? Lucky breaks?? That's not going to inspire me to open up my wallet any more than I currently am.

And it certainly doesn't help the effort to buck that trend when you run your marketing and several other functions through a co-mingled arrangement with a non-profit that has a major vested interest in the continuation of hockey sucking up the vast majority of the available resources at UND. Not a hockey hater by any means...but that arrangement hasn't been very good for the non-hockey sports imo...

At the risk of getting myself flamed on here...I actually agree with you on a lot of aspects related to UND sports. One thing I've found this fall is wanting better for this program than 7-4/6-5 is not popular with a lot of people! The solution involves a lot of people and a lot of resources that starts at a level much higher than Bubba, and that's a vicious cycle. UND's results don't inspire people to go to games/commit $$/etc...and without those $$ it's hard to invest more into the program to give it what it needs to thrive. Meanwhile 7-4/6-5 isn't enough to make wholesale changes, especially when the current way of doing things is "cheap". So from a business perspective the ROI is "acceptable"...but to fans like you and I who see NDSU's success and say "Why can't we do that?"...well it's a hard pill to swallow... If UND is going to catch up, it needs to catch lightning in a bottle and sustain some success at a level that's higher than they should currently be able to expect given their level of support. Is Bubba in year 9 going to find that? Doubtful...but if you make changes there's risk it could get much worse. Seems like we are too risk averse to do anything different...so until something changes, my expectation is 7-4/6-5 and a further stagnation within the program.

Those are the cherries on top that make a recruiting class special. NDSU has been absolutely ELITE at developing PWOs into pro-level talent. UND has had plenty that have done well in the program too. The problem I see with our recruiting is sometimes we are too reliant on diamonds in the rough. There are a lot of PWOs in the portal looking for drop down homes these days too. You need a mix of both studs and diamonds to excel at this level. NDSU has that market cornered...we need to catch up. And yes that means I'm agreeing with UND-FB-Fan's assertion that we don't have enough "D1 bodies" on the roster. We need to get better at winning some battles and not relying solely on evaluation of under the radar kids. That's always going to be a big emphasis for us...and I like how we did in some of the higher profile battles we had last year, but progress needs to continue to be made in my opinion.

Can you knock "boots" with her if you don't have all of a foot?? Or would "knocking a boot with her" be more grammatically appropriate??? Just kidding of course...

I'd assume that Port wrote this article with pending FOIA requests to determine how much money has been paid to the Berry's for this trademark. This will likely get worse before it gets better...Heads roll over this kind of crap a lot...

If we aren't going to give Ziebarth a chance to be the guy, then I expect to see his name in the portal. I get where Hoos came in and stole the job, but I've always been impressed when Ziebarth has gotten his shot. I hope to see him be RB1 next year, with a portal addition for depth and Smith/Wilson in 3rd down/scat back roles.

I'll try to keep them realistic without sugar coating things... Drake - Win by 40+ against a non-scholarship team NAU - Win by 10+ at home against a lower-level Big Sky opponent not at altitude Boise - Loss but competitive (similar to Nebraska but hopefully a bit closer) SDSU - Loss in a tough game on the road, hopefully we can put the fear of god in them. I think we need to win 1 of SDSU/UNI/NDSU WIU - Win by 20+ against a bad WIU team at home NDSU - I don't expect a win here but I would argue we need it. Being objective I'm going to a say a loss but my heart hopes otherwise UNI - Tough road game against a team that underperformed their talent level this year...must win on the schedule ISU - See WIU Murray State - Win by 10+ - see ISU and WIU but game is on the road USD - Dakota Dome is our Kryptonite - this is a must win ISU - Will hopefully have a ton to play for that weekend, game is in the Alerus so I feel good. I see 4 losses minimum in that schedule thinking realistically based on what I've seen in Bubba's era at UND (Boise/SDSU/NDSU/one of UNI or USD). A good performance would have us 8-3 (beating both UNI and USD on the road). If we do that, I doubt we'll be seeded but we SHOULD get a home game and win one playoff game. If we go 7-4 it'll be very similar to this year (one of the last teams in or out of the field, no favors on a matchup). Parts of this schedule are easier than last year (Murray not as good as ACU, NAU at home, swap out Youngstown and SIU for WIU and ISU-r), but parts are tougher (at UNI, at SDSU and especially at USD where we NEVER seem to play well). It's basically "wash rinse and repeat" in my book. Should our expectations be better than that? Absolutely! The hard truth of the matter is that if 7-4/8-3 is the best we can do, we will get left in the XDSUs dust even more than we already are. I get that people like Bubba and that the players work hard, but this is D1...winning is important. 7-4 is the bare minimum in my book, and I'd certainly like to see us look competent accomplishing that. There are aspects of this program that are absolute head-scratchers to me...and that can't happen going forward if we want to compete at the level that I think we should be at. My expectation for this program next year is 8-3, seeded or not we make the round of 16. Anything after that is gravy. I think it's realistic...but I'm not interested in another repeat of this year. Also if we mail in a 4th quarter for a moral victory like we did against NDSU ever again I'm done with this program. That was ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE in my book!

For what it's worth I had my top 4 seeds as follows: 1 - Sac State 2 - SDSU 3 - Montana State 4 - NDSU (the highest seeded team with an FCS loss). Only thing that changes from what the committee did here was uniform color in Frisco assuming the higher seeds win. If a conference is only supposed to get one rep on the committee, then said rep should advocate for what's best for the ENTIRE conference! In that case Larsen did his job by getting SDSU/NDSU on opposite sides of the bracket. We are one of the last teams in. If the selection committee's work was done logically with consistent application of transparent procedures, then this is about the matchup I'd expect for a 7-4 team. So I'm not going to cry about where UND was placed...because if we'd have just played better against SIU then I think we'd be hosting a game this week instead of travelling (not seeded but not thrown to Weber). What I am going to complain about is the inconsistency in how procedure is applied...because it makes a mockery of the whole selection process. NDSU and SDSU fans may laugh at us complaining about this...but one day it could be their program in a similar spot. That being said, as long as regionalization is a factor and the whole field isn't seeded 1-24...the potential for this will be in play.

WE (as in UND) certainly DO NOT need to get an attorney involved in anything regarding the NCAA for a long long loooooooongggg time! I'd prefer to say the hell with regionalization and just seed the whole thing 1-24. But then again I also feel like too many teams make the playoffs. In a sport where guys lay their bodies on the line every week, I feel like every team picked should have a legit shot of winning the title. That would mean like 8-12 teams in the FCS playoffs. I know I'm in the minority on that opinion...but it is what it is.

I was just going to say this exact same thing! Also we had two ranked wins that turned into unranked wins by year end. I get you need to play a great schedule, and I think just by being in the MVFC we can accomplish that, but schedule strength is awfully tough to figure out before the games are played.

This right here! Our chests puffed up when we sued an organization that we voluntarily belonged to...whether we were right or not, that kind of stuff tends to piss off the other party. Seems to me like they're holding a grudge here, and the best part (for them), they've got us by the stones! Not like we can do anything about it...

If that's the case then, respectfully speaking...WTF?!?

Somebody called "Professor Chaos" posted this on Bisonville and I think he hit the nail on the head. The MVFC has a bunch of middling teams that, according to the eye test, would probably win 6-8 games this year playing in the Big Sky or the SoCon (depending on who they drew for their conference schedule), but they beat themselves up during MVFC play. Hence the solid non-conference record against FCS opponents...that should help the conference in a big way come selection Sunday (we'll see if it does). This year there just happens to be a lot of teams with inferior competition that happened to (or will likely) get to 8 wins. We'll see how the selection committee looks at that...I'm not holding my breath for a good result (so just win baby!).

If you think the FCS is bad, go look at D2...and how many "SILO" conferences there are (no non-conference games of any kind). I can think of at least three (GAC/MIAA/NSIC). How in the heck do they evaluate the relative strength of teams in a regional playoff when they haven't played any competition outside of their conference? We may or may not like the committee's decision come Sunday (win Saturday and we don't have to worry about it...wink wink!)...but I think the lesson here is that you can't have an off week against anyone that's not FBS or a team ending in the words "Dakota State". There were excuses about back to back road trips when we lost to SIU...but the fact of the matter is we didn't play well and we'd really like to have that one back. That being said...we have as strong of a resume as any of the other 7 win teams (even with a loss). Also (just my opinion), none of the 7 win teams are going to threaten to win it all...so they should just put the teams in that can bid big to host a game and make some money for the NCAA.

They might be done with him after this year the way it sounds on the USD board. Lots of debate on the topic down there. I will say this: Bob Nielson is as classy of a coach as I've seen at this level...and he's a proven winner at every NCAA level of the sport he's been. He's responsible for the only two FCS playoff appearances in USD history. I've always liked the way he runs a program, and if he is let go at USD, some NSIC program would be lucky to have him should he chose to coach again, and an FCS program could certainly do worse. The difference between how his team carried itself on the field and the sidelines vs SDSU was striking to me. He's got a young squad down in Vermillion, and that Bouman could be a very good QB in the MVFC for the next three years. Unfortunately for Bob, college football is a business, and a lot of good coaches lose their jobs. Also, I believe Bob hired Bubba at UMD when he was the AD there...I'm guessing they are fairly close (don't know that for sure though).

I think it helps that they played the Bison at home... Also...NDSU seems to play down to their competition at times...as do we. I have no idea what to expect Saturday...but I do know this: If we go into the "let's play it close to the vest/first to double digits" mindset that we tend to go to against NDSU, we will lose by 7-10 points. I would actually feel more comfortable in a high scoring, shootout type of affair. If we go out, play loose and let it fly offensively...well then we might get it done imo! I'm hopeful the latter comes true...but until I see it...it hasn't happened.