Midwestern Hawk

JMU roars back. Good game.

Epic collapse in third qtr for JMU. Unreal start to 4 th qtr.

SDSU beating up Delaware. We are close gentlemen.

It sucks. Would love to be watching UND take on SHSU today.

That's fantastic. You guys are misinterpreting my posts, but thats ok.

Ketteringham was simply awful in the pocket. Did not have a good feel for pressure and when to move around and when throw it away. Way too many sacks. I think it will be interesting to see how the QB position evolves this summer and fall. Freund has worked overtime figuring out way to move the pocket and come up with "gadget" plays to cover for some shortcomings. I am not sure how Quincy is throwing the ball, but it is obvious that he is much more of a running threat than Tommy has been. Whether its Freund or Tommy or some of both, for UND to take the next steps, we HAVE to get over whatever the fear is and take some shots downfield when that is what the defense is giving us. This is 2nd and 9 throw to Richter, the play right before the INT in 2nd qtr. This should have been picked too. I don't understand the thinking here. Why are we not taking a shot downfield? It's 1 on 1, safety following Skokna in motion. This is one hell off a lot of trouble to attempt to throw the ball to Richter at the LOS. This again is a single read pass play. Richter does a hell of a job shielding the CB from the ball or this is an easy PICK 6.

It's hard to tell for sure from camera angles where safety is when ball is thrown, but safety is not in frame when ball is thrown to Cochrane. The safety is following the motion towards the boundary at the snap. My bigger point on that play is Tommy goes to the receiver the play is designed for or he throws it away. I'm not saying this is bad or necessarily wrong, I'm just saying when you look at the film critically that is what happens on every play. IMO its also why our offense struggled down the stretch(last 3 games) other then 1st qtr vs MSU.

When teams win the QB generally gets too much of the credit and when they lose they are supposed to get too much of the blame. Like I have said before, we are close, so very close. AT JMU we score a td after the muffed punt or score a TD on our first drive of second half we are likely on our way to Huntsville for the semis. I see the game differently than some of you. In today's football, all other things being relatively equal, teams go as far as their QB's will take them. Do we have deficiencies on D? Of course we do. Special teams, yes. But so does every other team.

So you are saying Cochrane is the open receiver or is Cochrane who the play is designed for?

No doubt about, he was wide open.

God I hate this, but some of you are watching a different game than I am. Tommy doesn't get sacked much because his throws are designed for one target. If that target is not open, he throws it away. Don't believe me, give me the play in the JMU game where Tommy threw to his secondary receiver. This is 3rd play of the game at JMU, if he doesn't lock on Cochrane and hits Maag in stride this is either a TD or a long, long gain.

Not sure why Danny would direct Tommy not to scramble/run, but maybe.

No doubt that is part of it, I think its lack of arm strength on QB part. One good hitch in the step out wide and Maag would have separation at least for a few yards. UND under Danny loves to run short passes to outside and screens, with tight man coverage, that is largely out the window. You guys were the first team that played our receivers that tight.

I didn't say Tommy can't run, but we now have a 7 game body of work which says he won't run. Takes so much pressure off the defense. Zeb Noland can't run at NDSU, if you go single high safety he will kill you with the deep ball. You want to win a national title or not? It's a QB game now.

Completely agree. Complete a fade route or two on the outside and they have to adjust. RB run and any type of WR screen is a non starter against this.

If you are Danny, where do you attack this defense. Next fall, this is what UND now will see a ton of.

I think we can say that pre-Entz they were geniuses at recruiting QB's.

So you are inferring that Quincy can't throw?

So this dude must have taken Trey Lance spot with the 4 star and Elite rankings. Do the Bison change up offense to go read option? How do you take advantage of a QB who can run but struggles throwing?

That should be interesting.

We need to be able to throw the ball down field and/or be able to run the QB with scrambles and designed QB runs. Did you happen to watch SDSU victories over NDSU and SIU(playoffs)? If SDSU wins it all, Gronowski will be the difference.

I think you hit the nail on the head with "serviceable". UND is close to winning a National Championship. Like I said, QB is by far the most important position on a football team. I'm not sure any football team can be good enough at the other positions to win it all with a QB who is "serviceable". I just don't think the ceiling on Tommy is high enough to ever get beyond throwing a lot of screens and short passes with the occasional well designed deep throw. Maybe Tommy will start running 5-10 times per game, that would help take the pressure off Danny a bunch. I completely agree with your thoughts on Rudolph, this spring would have been an utter dumpster fire with him calling the O.

While I always appreciate your opinions on all things UND football, I find your thoughts on on this post fascinating. You make the case that UND needs to improve its athletes at DL, S, RB behind Otis, add a WR to stretch the field and improve the OL. I would agree with all those thoughts to varying degrees. The part I don't understand is the "QB is not the issue"? I would say with the evolution of offensive football the QB position has never been more important, as NDSU found out this spring. YOu thoughts are the QB performance in both those games was good enough to win? It seems like you are not judging the QB performance with the same critical eye on improvement you are judging some of the other positions. That being said, if you were to rate the UND QB performance in the game at Fargo and at JMU on a scale of 1(better off going wildcat) to 10(QB took the team on his back and won the game for UND), where would you put that performance? Both the games are on youtube. QB stats in both games: NDSU: 13-26 for 143 yard with 1 TD and 1 INT, 1 carry for 3 yards. JMU: 16-26 for 213 yards with 0 TD and 2 INT, 3 carries for 16 yards. TOP at NDSU was 23:23 TOP at JMU was 21:38

Actually quite the opposite, Danny has done a great job overall matching the offense to our personnel. Not sure why posting a drive chart makes me someone who hates our offense. I am sure the staff will do some serious self evaluation on all phases. The two questions I would have for Danny are why we didn’t run Otis more the last 3 games(13 carries per game) and how will we attack an 8 man box going forward.

21:38 UND TOP UND 1st UND25 15:00 14:03 INT 3-5 0:57 UND 1st UND25 10:49 9:00 PUNT 3-1 1:49 UND 1st JMU39 9:00 7:42 PUNT 3-5 1:18 UND 1st UND25 0:30 13:12 TD 6-75 2:18 UND 2nd UND30 10:12 7:56 INT 6-26 2:16 UND 2nd UND09 5:08 1:40 TD 10-91 3:28 UND 3rd UND17 10:47 7:09 PUNT 7-26 3:38 UND 3rd UND20 2:16 0:00 PUNT 5-33 2:16 UND 4th UND10 9:59 6:39 TD 9-90 3:20