OgieOgilthorpe

I 100% agree with this. It happens in many cities similar to the size of Grand Forks and Minot. You see it in the residential real estate as well. One company owns the majority of the land, builds the majority of the homes, and sells the majority of the homes, so they essentially control the market and drive the price up as much as they can to keep homes selling. Crary... IMO the Grand Forks economy seems to be in an even worse hurt bag than Minot, which is saying something. Every time I come to town stores seem to be more and more empty with not really anything new going on for shoppers or visitors. I'm sure I will get squawked at again for stating the obvious about Grand Forks, but their economy is 100% for certain in a downward spiral. Even the majority of the Canadians seem to be bypassing GF for Fargo now. That's a bad sign when they're willing to go over 140 more miles just to shop. Yes Canadian traffic is also down a little bit due to the exchange rate, but there's more of an issue of them bypassing GF from what I've seen. I'm sure the folks from TRF, Bemidji, Grafton, Devils Lake, Park River and so on are doing the same thing. No one should be surprised that Bed Bath and Beyond is closing. It's just another large store with an empty parking lot the majority of the time. Next on the chopping block is Furniture row, Kohl's, Hobby Lobby, Micheal's, Old Navy, Gordman's, Best Buy, the entire mall, and probably some others. Yes retail in general is struggling this day and age, but why does Grand Forks seem to be having so much more of a problem? What is the city trying to do about it? Or are they continuing to deflect the issue all together? What does mayor Brown have to say about it? We don't even need to talk about Altru, because everyone knows they're not winning any awards and probably losing customers daily to Sanford in Fargo. If you ask me, I think the Columbia Mall will no longer be around in under 2 years, and the remainder of those businesses I mentioned will be closed within the next 5 years. Will the flagship stores of WM, Menards, Lowe's, Target and Scheels be enough to keep bringing people into town? Or is Grand Forks eventually just going to kneel to Fargo for all shopping and entertainment? I've also noticed more HWY 2 folks coming to Minot to fly, and judging by the data, it looks like a lot of them are choosing to drive to Fargo to fly out as well. Just another kick in the shorts for Grand Forks. I don't get what the issue is there. How are the GF folks not more upset about this obvious issue? It almost seems as if most don't even acknowledge it , so maybe that's the underlying reason behind it all. A few things I've noticed that actually seem to be doing well in GF (on the weekends anyway) are Menards, Target, Great Clips, Scheels and ALL of the restaurants on 32nd other than Arby's. I've also noticed that AMC somehow revived themselves because they've looked pretty steady or busy the last few times I've seen, whereas 2 years ago it looked like they were hanging on by a thread. Did they remodel?

If they punt right there UND would’ve had a big fat L tonight

Odd I know, but saying the UND D only dominated 3/4 of the game seemed a little shy..so I thought 4/5 was more fitting lol. I was thinking 3/4 made it sound like SHSU offense controlled for a full quarter combined but they didn’t quite

HOW on earth are we seeing the exact same kicking and punting issues that hurt this team so badly a year ago?! How does that go unfixed? Punting average under 35 yards. Gross. And if you just looked at stats you at least wonder if hangtime is at least good to make up for that? Nope. One, maybe 2 touch backs in 3 games? Probably averaging the 7-8 yard line? Gross Already have a missed XP only the 3rd game in. And it most certainly played a factor in decisions being made late in the game.

Worst 4 quarter O line performance I’ve seen out of UND in several years. Yes JJ is slow and doesn’t fit this offense like I’ve mentioned many times before, but anyone can gain positive yards when there are holes to run through. Tonight, their D line had Instant free roam in the backfield on run plays. Schuster fits the profile of a solid QB but understandably needs some time to bulk up and catch up to the game speed. Kudos to that kid for being cool calm and collected tonight and moving the ball. Great to see that out of a true frosh. Great work by Freund finding that kid. UND defense kicked the crap out of a very high profile offense for 4/5 of that game and the 1/5 was only when they lost their muster on repeated field appearances and toward the end when they got over 75 snaps. All 3 levels were fantastic and the sack receipt-ants need to shake the DBs hands. Great work all around All 4 special teams units are an absolute failure and would be below average for a D3 school. Not one touchback, a missed PAT, poor punt return decisions (at least 3) and an absolutely undeniably horrible horrible punting performance. He should be cut and they should find a new in house punter immediately. His average was below 34 YARDS and his long was 39 on 8 boots. Cripes! Those are JV football numbers. Find another FCS punter with worse numbers...(hint, you won’t find one). Most teams will average 10+ yards better than UND this season. That’s HUGE. SHSU’s punter had one more punt than Peterson did tonight but yet he out kicked him by almost 150 yards. That’s points on the board. Glad to see adjustments were made and that 3rd quarter won the game. Same OC as last season in that same scenario would’ve resulted in an L 100%

If so that’s the most sheepish most unconfident piece of garbage coaching advice I’ve ever heard. Coach with confidence, play with confidence and you’ll execute like so. I’m so sick of this conservative and nice guy safe style shown by this team...so I very much hope that wasn’t truly what happened there.

NDSU 38 UND 13 It'll feel and look like a better game than 2015 though

Luke Weerts Darryl Letterkenny

Nash Jensen Ricky LaFleur- Trailer Park Boys

Will Cardinal Stranger Things- Gaten Matarazzo

He had a very short field to work with on both. "Pinning" an opponent inside their 20 when your heels were on their 40 and 45 to start with isn't overally impressive. Yes, he did just fine, but I wouldn't say he did good or great. Playoff caliber teams would be furious about little things like that. ST cause the biggest swings in yardage by a long shot, so they should be taken a lot more seriously IMO.

And I believe Cade’s punting average was skewed due to trying to pin a few short punts (which he failed to do anyway) but on 4 punts he averaged under 35 yards. He did have one boomer though. It had great hang time and was fair caught at 46 yards. That’d be great if he could do that more consistently. More importantly he needs to vastly improve on accuracy. Pinning opponents deep can be deadly. Nothing catastrophic like last season thus far, but they certainly still missed on a lot of important details that make all the difference on ST. Good teams will expose these missing attributes

UNDs opening kick was caught on their 12 yard line and returned past the 30. Another kick went out of bounds. Punt team had several guys taking the wrong blocks which didn’t result in a blocked punt, but it will definitely be noticed by NDSU during film. Coverage seemed good but not swarming, and all 3 kickers were on and off. Seeing inconsistencies with our kickers and blocking schemes definitely counts as shaky in my book.

That’s great news. I hope Und can fight off the injury bug this year. So far, not looking like it

Yea a pioneer team yet we watched kett struggle to even produce 1st downs against them. The offense went stagnant with him at the reigns just like we saw all 2nd half of last season.

Rooney has a concussion so I expect him back for NDSU. No clue on Holm but hopefully it’s minor

Looks like Santiago got Injured at practice and will not be playing today now. Wow for bad luck

1 thing is for sure- drake is a better team than butler. But another thing is for sure, NDSU could’ve put up 90 on them if they had wanted to, so comparing scores does no good as usual. I do however have a slightly better feeling about next weekend now that I saw Zim run the offense more successfully. The Oline is going to get eaten alive but I think Zim will be good for 3-4 long explosive plays one way or another. With how spread out things are and how many 3 step routes they can toss, one of unds quick guys is bound to break loose a few times. NDSU had no push back whatsoever from that butler d and it made them inaccurately seem even better than last season. Surely they’ll be good but I think UNDs D will at least keep them in check most of the game. Chances of winning are extremely low but chances of keeping a respectable full length game are high. This will be a better game than 2015 just because of this offense, but I still predict a 3 score loss. But definitely not a negative yards going into halftime type of game this time.

After game one it looks as though a few of my bolder predictions I was mocked for became pretty clear. Unfortunately kett was pulled only due to injury, but it was clear as day that Zim was a better fit for this offense. Kett seemed slow, tentative and unathletic. Zim is a fast paced competitor with legs. He would’ve been playing the 2nd half of next week anyway in my opinion. This offense is going to rely more on their smaller quicker RBs than JJ. He’ll be good for the goal line TDs, but he just doesn’t have the quickness that fits this offense. Sure he has good top speed but he is FAR from quick. Special teams is improved but still far behind for this level of football.

Zim threw a couple ugly balls, but man is he competitive. He’s agile, elusive, athletic, and has good pocket presence. Most of all he’s willing to take chances and willing to throw the deep ball. He makes plays and gives the offense a chance for some home runs. Kett has a stronger arm, is slow as hell and seems tentative. Silver lining that Zim started getting game reps this week instead of in the 3rd next week when kett led them to 0 points

Defense looks good ST shaky Offense close to breaking out zim is better

Defense looks good ST shaky Offense close to breaking out

Drake had a winning record last year and they return a lot of their play makers and big boys. First game of the year on a new offense. A win is a win and I think it would be okay due to the fact that it might light a fire under the players and certainly the coaching staff to step it up for the NDSU week. Although completely blowing Drake out would make the fan base (including me) much happier and would probably give them some confidence and momentum going into next week which might be the best scenario possible. I do want them to run into a little adversity tomorrow though. That will give them some experience on how to handle it, because obviously they'll be running into that a lot next week. If everything is run easily and perfectly, that might not prep them as well for next week.

Did no one see TBR's prediction 2 mins after mine? Why am I catching so much flack for mine? haha

Harris already with 2 PDs tonight and 1 last game. He’s getting lots of Game time and making some plays. A few PIs and a few completions on him but nothing big and he’s competing. Knocking down balls and making quick contact after catch if not knocked down. It looks like he might have a spot on this team