Hans8891

Can we run up the middle for no gain on 1st and 2nd down just a few more times??? We have to show some offense - defense is not going to win this for us…. Time for a tight end sighting? Q had a beautiful touchdown catch on the one rare opportunity we have given him.,,

Awesome catch. Good for Q. Nice pass Simon…. Don’t let up D….

Would love to see a great day for Q, Bo, and Navratil who elected to come back for another year with the program…

Nice stop for the d to force a long missed field goal. Great run by Sawyer.!!! Let’s see if we can prove we belong!!!

Simon is playing scared. Guiding the ball like a wounded duck rather than throwing it with authority and confidence.

I know significant contact has become obsolete in practice to avoid injury, but do we do anything to develop tackling skills. This is worse tackling than the Mussman days - and that was not a high bar to pass…

If we don’t have more than this, we will be lucky to win 2 games in the conference. We have zero team defensive skills. Not much for individual defensive skills. An offense that doesn’t generate anything. We have 5 assists so far. 30 percent shooting when we don’t turn it over - which is a third of our possessions. No shooters other than Trey. Ouch…. Finally a few minutes of pushing up the floor resulted in a couple good looks. Need that more - half court offense is nonexistent. CSU is good but we don’t look like we belong on the floor with them.

Struggling defensively down low as expected. I was hoping that we would look better offensively. Paul needs a different offensive look. Way too slow with limited movement. We don’t have BJ and Ihenacho this year to simply create on their own. Will likely need to be running this year or we will be in trouble relying on this half court offense. Some good athletes, but not much for shooters that I am seeing other than Treysen. Not a good recipe unless we can really create off the dribble. That hasn’t happened and we have way too many turnovers. 15 at the half has to be near a record. Eli seems timid. He is going to have to create for them to have success, especially if this is the offense we are going to continue to run

Maybe this is the catalyst to actual change in this program. If Chaves is really accepting of this as expectations for this program, he needs to find a new career. I am very happy with what Isaac has been able to do with his side of the ball. We lost our entire offensive line, had no idea what was going to happen with quarterbacks, and he made it happen for the most part with offense in a difficult situation for returning players. Our “defensive minded” head coach and his in program protege did not lose everyone in the portal but managed to give up more yards and points every week. By the end of the year, we should be able to give up 60 - and we will still be playing the same schemes. And the press conference after the loss will contain the same platitudes we have grown accustomed to. The notion of insanity has been defined as doing something over and over again and expecting different results. Welcome to UND football insanity.

There is your answer as to why they haven’t run the ball. Not much there. Other than a few drops, passing has been fine. When we haven’t gotten it, we have drawn a penalty. 2 running plays in a row there with no room at all. I would have rather seen a pass - those have been open plus give Simon an opportunity to run against a stacked box.

Somehow I suspect that even Bubba will recognize that we need a change at DC with the disaster we have seen the last two years, partially to take the heat off his own involvement in this debacle. If that happens - and it certainly should happen - for god’s sake, get someone other than the usual Bubba disciple on the defensive side of the ball. This needs an overhaul - badly….

Just when I thought our defense couldn’t look worse, our adjustments from halftime prove me wrong. Poor tacking, nobody sets the edge, no pressure on the quarterback, and in spite of not putting pressure on the quarterback to contain him, we can’t contain him either. Our schemes suck and our tackling is worse. We are returning to Mussman football where the offense looks good, but has to in order to offset the 40 points given up by the d every week. This d is just painful to watch. Again, against a very poor team on the road. Unless we have a miraculous change due to the Alerus, there is now way we give the South Dakota schools a game unless we just don’t punt for two weekends in a row.

Hands down the “4th down go for it in our own end with a lead” against the Bison. I just assumed in the stands we were trying to draw them off and call a timeout if they didn’t bite. Nope. I was wrong…. Even the biggest of Bubba fans were left scratching their heads in confusion on that decision.

This can’t really be a surprise to any of us. We have gone exactly as expected other than a very pleasant surprise with Montana. The O line has been better than expected with all of the transfers but a better program stacked the middle with no real threat downfield at quarterback. Not much we were going to do without showing any potential to back 10 off the box. Even going to the outside their corners sold out every time knowing there was no risk. Defensively their offense is just better than our defense. We got manhandled at the line. They do have a dual threat quarterback and he made plays. And it’s a road game that Bubba has never shown an ability to be ready for. Disappointing but definitely not a surprise. Need to find a way to unstuck the box against us or playing top level teams will not go well.

And the old Simon resurfaces…. Trying to find a bright spot as it is clear they are running with Simon no matter what throws he makes or doesn’t make…. But it is getting harder to do…

Simon with a great fake and nice throw. If we can keep this Simon, looks like a different team.

Bo was wide but it was still a good throw. We have had numerous open opportunities where Simon ends up 5 yards short, but that was in stride and a nice throw. The passing game has been hard to watch but that was a legit nice pass. Good work Simon. The coaches are clearly not going to change horses so hoping this will get him some rhythm and we can unstack the box a bit.

We also haven’t seen Simon look to run which is clearly his strong suit. If he is going to be the guy, he needs to make things happen with his legs to open up the short to mid passing game - . Deep pocket passing is clearly not his forte….

Every pass over 15 yards becomes a curl pattern. He needs an earlier release as I don’t think he has the arm to get it past the receiver if they get very far down field - but we have to get at least 15 or 20 down the field or we will have 10 in the box the rest of the year.

Dixon is out but we have gone 1-5 on the cb depth chart and nobody wants to cover anyone. Couple that with minus 1 passing yards and 7 rushing yards halfway through the first half against a team we are 4 touchdown favorites. There better be a royal ass chewing in the locker room at half. Nobody was ready to play,,,

Of the 5 incomplete, 2 should have been caught and were not Simon’s fault, one bad read to Bo with no chance, and 2 balls that were wide open and missed by 10 yards. Not sure what happened on those 2 but the rest have been okay other that a very bad read to Bo in short triple coverage.

Can simon really be that inconsistent on wide open short passes? Like his competitiveness but man he has to hit easy wide open passes and not miss by a mile…

That is exactly why Bo should not be our punt returner. Last thing we need is to lose Bo on a return we never intended to be returned anyway. Someone on a 100 man roster has to be able to catch a punt….

I disagree. Eli has shown that he has very good playmaking skills. He has very good vision for th open man. No question exists that Tyree was better suited for our half court offense where it was essentially whatever he could create without much offensive movement from anyone else. Tyree was good enough to make that happen against most teams. However even Tyree, as talented as he was, struggled against better defensive teams hen we were forced into our half court offense - i.e., Omaha, KC, St. Thomas, NDSU, and SDSU. We played better when we played with pace. Our half court offense was not our strong suit even with the athletic skills of BJ and Tyree. I hope that Paul will adapt a better offense to the tools we have and find a wat to get Trey some better looks. With a better offense with more movement not entirely reliant on the singular playmaking of one or two players, I think Eli can fill that role very well. He is an incredible defensive player. He and Tyreee both made some unbelievable passes at times off the drive. Certainly the addition of Tyree was huge for us. But we also had the emergence of Amer the second half of the year which was also a game changer. Don’t get me wrong. I wish like hell that BJ and Tyree were staying. I think we would have been the team to beat in the summit with those two,, but that is mid major basketball at this point. I cant blame them for taking the opportunities that present themselves. We will definitely have some holes to fill, but so will others in the summit. I like the pieces coming back if we can find a few key players to fill holes, particularly a 3 and a big man. I hope Kraft comes around next year, but we could certainly stand to add more shooting depth as well…. We do that, I think we can be in the hunt next year as well.

SDSU tried to do what we did. Took a 22 point lead with 6 minutes left, played clock management and didn’t score for 5 minutes. They actually gave up more of a lead than we did but had 22 to play with instead of 12. One reviewed call that was close could have given Denver the ball back with 30 seconds to play and down 5. Was an epic collapse. Another classic example of changing the game plan that got you the lead in the first place with way too much time left. Game should not have even been close. 20 plus point lead all game…