MNHawk

I’m shocked at how many people are impressed by our offense after these last two games. With four minutes left in the first half yesterday, we had two first downs and four punts. Our offense did nothing for the first 26 minutes of the game. A big reason for the 24-0 deficit was that our offense did nothing almost the entire first half of the game (and then got bailed out by the refs). Our first quarter drives against NDSU consisted of two punts and a fumble along with three first downs across the three drives. We went down 21-0. Our offense didn’t come out of the gates prepared for either of these games, and you can’t give away an entire quarter or half against good teams. The defense needs upgrades, but the offense has to be able to stay on the field when the defense is struggling.

Fair enough. Salary comparisons are probably more complex than they appear on the surface. It does seem that Bubba’s salary would allow us to have a competitive budget for a new hire, but I’d be interested to know if someone has done more research on how UND’s salary+bonuses compare to the salary+bonuses of others.

Oh cmon. I wish UND paid much higher salaries to football coaches, but they certainly pay enough to make competitive hires. Bubba makes more than Brent Vigen.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to hire a “UND guy” just because he has a UND background. For those of you who would like to go that route, what makes you think Danny is a better option than Jake Landry or Luke Schleusner? Even if we do stick to UND grads, I think there are better or equal options to what Danny offers.

The goal of every hire should be a program changing guy like Jay Hill or Troy Taylor. Eck is looking like one of those guys as well. I’m not sure that we have one of those within the program.

Even if that is the case, we still have to be able to win big games on the road. If we win this week, we are sent to Bozeman for an even harder road game.

Rudy was pretty good at stopping offenses IMO.

Maybe I am misremembering. I guess we return to my original question. When did we last beat that type of team?

Man, if you think it’s unfair to ask about our lack of wins against elite teams, then I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sick of losing to these teams every time out.

I would believe in this argument more if I hadn’t watched this offense sleepwalk through half of the NDSU game too. Unfortunately it’s a bit harder to excuse two lackluster performances in the two biggest games of the year.

“Offense did fine” I’m not sure I agree with this sentiment. The offense scored 17 points through three quarters (10 if you exclude the bad fumble call). That’s not good enough and I don’t think our performance should be considered good because we scored a couple of touchdowns against a prevent defense late.

When was the last time we beat a team as good as Weber? SDSU in the pandemic season? What if we exclude the pandemic season?

One playoff win in 9 years. I guess we get to see if Chaves considers that acceptable.

We were fortunate to be within 7 points of Weber despite being gifted 7 points by the refs. I don’t know how you can say the result would have been different if this game was played at the Alerus.

Man, this team had the chance to make a case for a home playoff game yesterday, and they didn’t make much of an argument. Hard for me to blame Chaves for not breaking the bank after that showing. Now we gotta do it the hard way. It is on the players and coaching staff to show up in Ogden and show that they are better than they looked in Fargo. I don’t think anyone will be too sad about missing a home game if they look outclassed on Saturday. That will only validate Chaves’s decision to not bet on this team.

Man, if you watched that game and thought we were a couple of breaks away from winning, then I don’t know what to tell you. We were thoroughly outplayed and outcoached.

You mean the guy who stuck with Rudy for 5 years is slow to change? Shocking.

Oh cmon. The guy isn’t incompetent. He isn’t turning this program into Western Illinois. He’s a good enough coach to reach a winning record in the MVFC, and that’s worth something, it’s just not good enough for what this program should expect.

I’ll be surprised if we make better halftime adjustments than the NDSU staff does, but if we do make a game of it I’ll be the first to give Bubba credit.

We got Bubba on the task. 9 more years, and he’ll have it done. I’m confident.

Whether we are playing NDSU, Nicholls, or Richmond, you can always expect Bubba to have his team ready for big games and never get out coached.

Why does it always feel like we can be competitive with anyone? No matter how good or bad they are. We really seem to play to the level of our opponents.

The offense has scored 6 points through 3 quarters. Why are we blaming the defense? Almost impossible to win games with that amount of offense.

UNI looks like a bad team too. Down 24-7 against Sac State

Unsportsmanlike Conduct is an inexcusable mistake. Just an unforced error.