AJS

What a weird, wild first half up to this point. Last two games of the calendar year, with a real opportunity. A sweep puts them in the drivers seat for a regular season title. It puts them in a really good place as well from a national landscape. The inconsistency the last few weeks has been concerning, it also feels though that they've really been battling through roster issues (Flu, Injuries) for most of the 1st half. When is the last time they've had a full lineup? What I would like to see. (1) Hellsten start on Friday. Two goalie system until one proves they are the starter. The defense hasn't helped some nights, but regardless, Driscoll has a .889 SV%, which is awful. In fact only 14 worse (min games component on CHN) SV% in the country. (2) Bast / Johnson get minutes. You only learn by playing. It's at the point where I would prefer they send Johnson back to the USHL for the 2nd half of the year.

I'm taking a leap of faith with the assumption that all key pieces that would have left for the portal have already done so. Initial big thoughts. Offensively: All focus is on the O-line as they're fine everywhere else. They lose two total, both starters, one All-American. I actually have little doubt they'll as a group be improved next year, but by how much is the question. I think there were three main factors in the O-line taking a pretty significant step back from Spring (1) Losing 3 starters (2) Limited offseason (3) Class breakdown (how incredibly young that group was). Now, we're looking at replacing one less, with a full off-season with a roster that is still very young, but getting there. Breakdown currently will be 2 Seniors, 3 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 3 R-FR. They have a few offers out in the portal as well. Defensively: The D-Line was good last year, only losing one, I think they are the unit that improves the most on the team. I think 2022 will be the year they finally get back to a very good unit. Strength. ILB - Strength. Safety - Solid. They had so many injuries last year, that a lot played. We all could have written the 2-deep for this position, which says something when you lose two starters. CB / OLB. Need a guy in the transfer portal for each position. Like Safety though, the OLB position had so many injuries this year, that so many played. Reading Kelly's write up, that was his only real miss. He said MVJ and Navratil were the only two with any experience. Didn't Mullin play a lot more than MVJ last year? Need to get that 11th game locked in, but I do like the conference schedule structure. The Home / Road breakdown much better. They were close last year, every game (outside of Western) within a TD. I'm confident the offense will be able to pick up that 7 point difference next year. The question then falls on, will the defense be able to match the 2021 team.

I don’t see it happening. Not worth potentially losing recruits that could be great 3/4 year guys, for an extra year of Senden. Not a knock on Senden, I would say that for any player. Too solid a class of Forwars recruits.

Five recruits in the Top 40 in USHL points. Perron is on an absolute tear. 11 points in past 5 games.

What does Griffin Ness do well?

I go Driscoll tonight, but moving forward I’d like the goalies to split the weekend. Hellsten next Friday.

I need an explanation why the goaltending / defense has been so widely inconsistent. Driscoll has had great numbers his entire hockey career. The defense when you go player by player should be good. It just doesn’t make sense.

Going to not overreact to this one. These games do happen where everything goes in. They’ve been playing with fire the last three weekends, have a feeling this will finally be the weekend they get burned. Can’t imagine them winning tomorrow, but thought the same thing the last two weekends and they pulled it off. The lack of discipline is the really concerning thing. I don’t want to see Jandric for the rest of the calendar year. Do players just not fear Berry?

I hope so, he looked really good at the end of the year. I should clarify, I meant UND is not going to get a bonafide #1 OLB in the portal. Or I would have a hard time believing that.

Aaron Cooper is very intriguing. Highlights. 2019: Started all 11 games at Will linebacker as a Sophomore (3rd on team with 67 tackles) 2021: The Depth Chart I saw he was starter at Will Linebacker. Finished 6th on team with 39 tackles 6'1" 210lbs Grad Transfer. Cal Poly was not good at all this past year. Gave up a lot of points (39.2 game), didn't score many (15.4 game). There is no replacement coming for Turner of course, but could Cooper be a Ty Shannon (this year) / Urwiler (expectations next year) replacement? As far as comparable impact. Call him a solid # 3 / # 4 OLB? That would be a very big and very needed pick up. I really like that offer.

Rizzo was originally announced with the Sanderson class, when UND released the incoming Freshman. Shortly after, it was announced he was no longer coming. The Weatherby situation had nothing to do with it, wrong year.

Need some good news soon to stop the bleeding, get the wheels back on the track.

It really is crazy. Every single thing related to UND Football since the INT in the SDSU game has been bad news. It's to the point where if a day goes by with no news, you consider it a success. This right now is as bad as I've felt about UND Football, ever.

The more the Otis news sinks in, the more and more I'm ok with it. Dixon most likely being collateral damage from it. Otis had to have been a gigantic distraction this past year. That's not taking a giant leap assuming that, benched for two games. Nobody can knock his talent, but the coaching staff just lost a huge headache. Love the RB depth.

What can you say, it's a run away train of bad news the last few weeks. I'm standing by the above philosophy. We'll see if the hits keep coming or if things start turning around.

For me, there's two pretty big unknowns. @Sioux94 already asked the question, looking at quality and number of transfers for UND, how is that compared to like schools. Other being, will there be others? Before overreacting, you have to really dissect each portal move. Positional depth, other positional departures (graduation / transfers). There's a finite amount of space on a roster and time a player can play. There's a lot of nuance to this and positional groups vary, but getting the right amount of turnover is key. Balance. Do others have that philosophy? Where, you (# varies) by positional group, but you'd rather lose that perfect #, then return everyone? The thought being, balance, you have room to bring in another X amount for the freshman class, the loss of those guys the following year is negated by returning players having more experience, stronger, faster, ect. So far, I could point to TE / DL transfers with the above philosophy and why those two won't sink those positional groups.

@Midwestern Hawk I stand corrected. I clearly don't understand the thought process for some of these, specifically Urwiler / Robertson. It's time to log out until the smoke settles. This program isn't very fun at this point to get into the weeds with.

If you ask me who I would be most excited for, it would be an All Conference D2 guy. Those are the ones if I was the coaches I would go after hardest.

I would think a player would want to transfer as early as possible. That would be announcing and trying to sign, so they could enroll at their new school by spring semester. The way I’m looking at it is the first wave already came. Season over, end of year discussions between Coaches / Players completed. This is an important week, I could see players talking it over w/ their parents over Thanksgiving. If we don’t hear anything this next week, I’ll feel good moving forward. Not saying it’s impossible for a player or two after that, but to answer @fightingsioux4life not talking walk ons, this wouldn’t just be the beginning.

You would think, logically, that players would be entering sooner than later, correct? Why would players be waiting to enter the portal? Or am I reading your post wrong? Of course there is always a handful of walk ons that won’t be on the roster next year, but that’s the case with every college football team, every year. If you’re implying that there will be more ‘Nelson’ type players, we’d be finding that out soon. Or at least that would make the most sense to me.

Made some corrections. Richter / Boltmann (honored Senior Day) are now bolded. Peterson is not. Other than that, it looks good.

After an extremely disappointing effort on Friday, kudos for the turn around on Saturday. Splits are fine during this stretch, but they are playing with fire losing Friday nights. Tough for Calder, but I guess the bright side is this would be the most opportune time for this injury to happen. Two series and then three weeks off without any games (not counting the exhibition against U-18). They really need Constantini / Kunz back. Forward line up without Calder / Constantini / Kunz really takes a hit. Overall, a good weekend results wise.

Agreed, but do you think he played well?

You’re only going to learn by playing. Johnson needs to be in the line up. Berry picking Johnson over Morrow looks laughable. Johnson could have used another year in the USHL clearly. What an awful decision. Berry deserves more criticism than he gets for that one.