AJS

Wow! Berry and staff catching fire! Emerson is tied 6th in points in USHL as a late ‘03. Great get!

I would say it’s directly correlated to the extra Covid year. For every guy that stays that extra year, you need someone to leave.

That's my theory. It's also important to note that they were starters, because they were the best on the team at those positions (or 1 of 2). It happens to be that it's sort of a consensus that those were the two of the biggest weaknesses on the team. What I think we'll see based on the list 360 had prior to Senior day is KK / Buckner / Mullin were set to use their Covid year and return this year. If that's the case, you lose 0 Safety's and 1 OLB. From a practical standpoint, I do like that you've now opened a spot for a younger player. A little bit of a shake up, so those positional groups don't stay stale. Clearly a different situation if you have a positional group that's strong. Felt, those two needed a shake up a bit.

I'm starting to feel pretty confident that we will not see anyone else from UND enter the portal. Here's the list. Ledbetter (FR) - D-Line Moe-Tucker (FR) - RB (PWO) Oliphant (GR) - O-Line Preston (JR) - WR Lehman (R-FR) - LB (PWO) Vaughn-Jones (SR) - OLB (STARTER) Coley (JR) - Safety (STARTER)

UND has put themselves in a situation, where realistically, if they get swept, there's no coming back from it. 6-10-3 call it a year. Split minimum to keep hope alive. I'm calling Friday a MUST win game.

Just listened to the UND Hockey podcast. I know some of the advanced stats aren't for everyone but listening to the projected goal stat and how it accurately predicts 6 of the 8 NCHC records to within a game, I'm starting to buy into it. Count me into the group that believes we'll see a turnaround here this season.

Circling back to two offers that are a few days old now: Wesley Elidor: USD receiver. UND offered him 5 days ago. His current offers, UT Martin, McNeese State, Illinois State, NAU, Austin Peay. Blake Peterson: Iowa State D-Line: Other offers. USD, UNI, NDSU, Old Dominion, WKU, Kent State, Illinois State, UNC-Charlotte

You're thinking of Hunter Zenzen who entered the portal from Iowa State.

How confident are we in the QB room behind Schuster? I'm thinking about the "what if" scenario that Tommy gets hurt and they need someone to run the offense. Are we in Heidelbaugh territory or are we in much better shape?

either strong in the regular season and lose in the 1st round of the NCAA's OR miss the tournament all together?

He's also only 255lbs. I've been told that's much too light to play on UND's D-Line.

For a program like UND hockey when it comes to recruiting, I would simply say, be better. That staff is given every advantage, so figure it out. This is in regard to not having a single freshman defenseman they felt was ready. By Christmas last year they should have been looking for someone then. All this talk recently about the UND culture. I just don't understand how turning this program into Transfer U helps. There is no reason this team has to rely on the Transfer portal and 5th year guys to fill out their roster. Again, I'm not saying never use the Portal, if the perfect one-off type of situation arises. What I'm seeing though, is it's being used as a crutch by this staff, because they don't have the proper recruits lined up.

Let's revisit this last off-season. I wasn't the only one that was very frustrated with how clunky it appeared. Other programs seemed so much more calculated; those decisions made sense. How many were neutral at best to Berry deciding to bring back two bottom 6 forwards for their 5th year causing a logjam at forward? Then there was the which freshman are coming in / players who need to be pushed to the portal, which ended with Spicer decommitting. That played out so much longer than it should have. I found the coaching staff not having ONE freshman defenseman that was ready to come in to be very frustrating. Having to lean on the portal not once, but twice. My plea would be, use the portal minimally. If there's a perfect fit, one guy, ok. No more 5th year guys. I'm talking both via the portal or in-house.

Good news is the defensive deficiencies were so glaring this year that one thing we can all agree on is they will be attempted to be addressed. If we see Safety portal offers like we did O-Line this past year, then we'll know the coaching staff doesn't feel they have in-house what they need to take that next step.

I don't disagree with anyone you've said. My point is there are positions that are easier to fill in gaps via the portal. At UND, I think Safety is the most difficult position to do that. Improvement will have to be a group effort from within. Talking about improvement, I did feel Buckner looked much more comfortable by the end of the year. He could take a big step.

Although I don't think it was the weakest point last year, for me it's always start up front. Johnson returning is huge and I'm hoping Ogbu returns too. I get the sense that is the plan but would like confirmation. If nothing us changes, they'll lose Morrison (starter), depth upperclassman Keech / Thorsness and Fr. Ledbetter. Based on Bubba specifically calling out improving the D-Line, I'm hoping we'll see the O-Line portal approach from last year applied to the D-Line. This is the only position that I hope they try to sign multiple portal players at.

Is your hope that some combination of Fort / Buckner / Ball / Davis will start with KK providing back up? What I've picked up the last couple of years is it takes time to develop at the safety position at UND. Must be a lot you have to know. I'm hoping for your sake and others that you think that UND will just pick up a couple of "Cole Reyes" types and that's the solution for next year. I'm not saying they aren't looking for one, but I'm guessing you'll see them ready to rock with mostly what's on the roster currently.

For FBS schools. So for UND, no. I’m guessing UND will have a few more next week, but should be close to done.

Here's my thought. When the season ends, there's clearly an internal audit of each positional group. The Portal / Extra Covid year has added a new layer. I want to concentrate on OLB / Safety, since I believe they were the two biggest weaknesses on the defense, as well as have many parallels. The first important component is only one player has no eligibility left (Cooper). Almost everyone can come back. These were both position groups that the 2-Deep was very heavy on upperclassman. What's the strategy. For me, the two most important things are (1) You cannot run it back with the same group. (2) More importantly, you cannot start over. What do you do? For me, if you feel a soon to be 5th year guy is the most important piece, then you have to offset that with another Upperclassman in this situation. Both MJV / Coley's request happened on Friday (although Coley announced on Saturday). Seems very strategic to me. What do I want to happen? Exactly what did. That was Part 1 for those two positional groups. Part 2 is and I know this will not be popular with at least one of these, but KK, Buckner, Mullin all need to return. I hope they all do. The coaching staff will either feel they can promote from within (i.e. Fort / Davis / Sutton / Boekner, ect) or else they'll go to the Portal. I feel really good about the moves that have happened so far in the offseason. The next key piece is for a non-starter at CB that did play that's an upperclassman to hit the portal. That is if indeed Siegel returns. That will hopefully be the last portal entry.

Best of luck. You’d think we’ll see one of the corners enter as well over the next couple of days. *Early indications were that all Secondary members that could use their 5th year were going to, so there was going to be movement elsewhere.

Big time. Very important piece returning. Need a few more key 5th year guys to confirm.

Going to be very interested to hear what Berry has to say, doesn't look good for him at surface level. Edit: "Doesn't look good" is a pretty large understatement.

Kudos to Chaves for publicly saying something isn't right and Miller for doing the reporting on it.

My question is, based on the excellent reporting done so far, is anyone else surprised that there apparently has been no actual push back on the committee members? Herder breaks everything down perfectly in his article. We're so close. Just need someone to go with the facts and ask for an explanation. Not the one we already were given, like a true, if you made this case for Weber, why was the opposite done for Montana? It's just so frustrating that Larson is going to be able to skate without ever answering to how this happened. There's no other way to look at what happened and come to the conclusion. NDSU - Better situation, UND - Worse, Youngstown - Worse. Not saying that Youngstown should have been in, but man, really appears he only went to bat for one school.