wheelsup

As I recall.. last year you were calling Tommy Noodle arm and advocating for Jerry and Feeney. Somehow this kid with no throwing ability (according to you) beat out both of those guys in an open competition. Danny could have picked either one of those guys.. Fruechte also could have picked either of those guys and yet they both picked somebody else. Lets give Romfo a chance here. Whens the last time we beat the #4 team in the country.. Last year I think NDSU was #6 or #7 but I cant remember and the running game was the star of that show as well. The impact of a great running game on our defensive performance cant be emphasized enough. Agree with you on the interceptions.. they were basically the same play two different games.. I think he got hit on both throws..

Millers article this morning had a great comment from Hauck.. ""We didn't have the ball. We had one first down in the second half, and it was on the last drive. We failed in every aspect in the second half, and they did a good job making second-and-long (into) third-and-short. Gave them the ability to run it. I don't know if they can throw it. We didn't make them." Im guessing the upcoming teams will start making us throw it. Maybe our O-line, RB's and QB can be dominant enough that it wont matter.

Last couple years we were all complaining about Tommy’s unwillingness to take easy yards on the ground.. this year seems like the theme will be Romfos struggles with the pass.. let’s see how it plays out.

Biggest difference so far this year is willingness of the offensive coordinator to commit to the run.. if Tommy had turned around and handed off the ball we would have won more games last year. at some point our lack of passing competency will catch up with us this year. But we would have been a better team last year with more commitment to the run

Got to give the Administration some credit on this last win. They did a great job with the tailgating atmosphere/live music as well as the fireworks after the game. Over all very well done. I hope that the football team can maintain the momentum through the season as this was a great crowd and great game. I was really surprised that more people didnt bail at halftime.. The Alerus was rocking. Similar to others comments Defense first quarter/first half was hard to watch.. for a while I was thinking we would get run out of the alerus. I thought Montana was going to hang a 50+ on us maybe by halftime. The turn-around in the 2nd half was unbelievable.. complementary football but also very strong performance on both sides of the ball. Felt like we had more sacks in the 2nd half than all of last year. Watching our D-line.. pretty significant improvement.. although im not sure how our 98 hangs in there.. he looks really small.. program lists him at 6' 270lbs.. looks generous to me. Our run game is fun to watch.. add in Romfo and all three of our RB's look like they can take it to the house on every play. Very few negative plays. Commitment to the run is such an obvious improvement over last year.. Fruechte seems to know its our strength this year and leans into it. This was my biggest complaint of Danny last year.. love seeing Q in short yardage.. crowd goes nuts.. pretty unstoppable. If you need a yard he will get you 2.. if you need 5 yds he will get you 2. Two games into the year and no trick plays.. its a nice change-up. A few trick plays a year are fun.. when its a mainstay in your offensive gameplan each week it gets old. To this point of the season our new o-line/OC are minimum of a push and maybe better than the guys we lost. At some point we are going to have to throw.. Hopefully Romfo will improve in this area. Kickoffs have to improve.. its embarrassing.. Was nice to be 2/2 on FG's.. should be a confidence builder.. Im waiting for the fake on this one with Romfo as the holder.

Seems like the fbs to fcs gap is bigger than ever. We might all need to step away from the ledge a bit

I have no doubts why feeney left.. he spent the last three years watching and saw his whole college career going by without any meaningful playing time. How much of the lack of putting in subs is bubba and not the OC? agree 100% about last year.. feeney should have played more particularly in the blowouts. This game though.. seems like if u think romfo is the guy you have to get him game experience.. it wasn’t a blowout and was meaningful snaps.

You can’t watch the game today and believe romfo is a good fcs level QB. I hope he had a bad game and will be much better the rest of the year… maybe he won’t lose games.. but didn’t seem like he would be winning them either. His mobility and scrambling abilities were good but at some point you have to make some throws. Watching miller on Thursday and comparing him to our guy they are different levels right now.. hopefully it was a bad game.

Crap call for sure.. could call that every play

Omg.. 3rd and long stop.. already better than last year! I half expected the ghost of kk to come running across the field.

Difference to me so far is willingness to run.. and continue running. Will be interesting if we attempt any longer passes… eventually need to stretch the defense.

Looks like we have a little specialist work to do.. crappy punt.. crappy kickoff

Hopefully the new strength and conditioning is a difference maker for us

18 yd punt.. cmon

My guess is that this year won’t count against his eligibility since he left before the first game or something. Only thing that actually makes sense. Otherwise it would be obvious to stay to the end of the season.

I have to admit I was really hoping for the UND/NDSU game winning, Feeney to Belquist connection, in the fargodome this year. Would have been an altimer. I dont blame Feeney at all for leaving.. Although the most recent "day by day" was clearly cut before this happened. He spent last year as the 2nd stringer and got in so rarely even when the games were out of hand.. Im sure he saw that flashing before his eyes again. Im not a QB talent evaluator, and barely only a commentator on the internet, but have to assume he saw the rest of his career going by without ever getting to play meaningful minutes. My assumption is Danny saw him every day and picked Tommy over and over regardless of struggles.. Fruechte has likely seen more QB talent and knows what he wants way more than I will ever even think about and somehow picked Romfo over him (also a junior). I was kind of guessing that Romfo was picked as QB1 for the Iowa St football game and that 2-3 QB's would get meaningful time but they seem to be really pushing the Romfo thing. If back in January you would have told me that we would have ended up with a shorter QB than we had last year I would have laughed. Im excited with what I have seen out of Fruechte so far so am really hoping he made the right decision.. Im really excited for Romfo to see what he can bring to the table and hope he continues his winning ways, but was also really hoping that Feeney would get his shot this year. As long as Feeney doesnt end up in the MVFC Ill wish him all the success.

One of my biggest disappointments this year is not getting to find out if the offensive issues the last couple years was more of a Tommy thing or an OC thing. i bet we will see a little of Tommy in the big10 this year as it sure seems like he is 2nd string and we will sure get to see plenty of Danny this year. I’m also gaining excitement in this years team.. some great recent articles by Tom miller.. football 360 podcast etc. many things to be excited about while also concerned about the general youth of the team.

Pretty sure Joel has been the DC for only one year which I think makes it all line up a bit better. I remember holinka having a good year followed by a terrible year.. 22 and 23 were equally bad and poor from a defensive point of view. I feel we will be better on the defensive side this year although I would have said we were way worse than 26th last year.. felt more like 96th most games. Strength or schedule must be a big impact or something.

My guess is that we will be a top 12 MVFC defense.. maybe even a top 10 . looking on the mvfc website looks like we were a top 7 defense this last year.. from personally watching all the games it felt way worse then that.

Tommy was a solid QB.. in the list of problems last year he was a distant 3rd behind a terrible defense.. and OC who couldn’t commit to the strength of the team which would have also bailed out the defense by keeping them off the field. The Tommy bashing is always overdone. I would guess the offense will be serviceable again the year with lots of skill at the skill positions. Whether we win or lose will depend on if the defense improves.. luckily our head coach is a defensive coach so there is that…

Wasn’t there a year where we went smaller as an o-line to get better? I think it will be better then that year

I also was a big Danny supporter although he was certainly not without his issues. I felt the offense was going to be the strength of the team and likely still will be this year. I’m very hopeful for Fruechte.. skill positions will be as good or improved in my book.. I’m very nervous about our OL with all of the turnover. It’s gone from one of our biggest strengths to one of our biggest question marks heading into the year. Pawlak was awesome.. hopefully the new guy can step up. Defense is still the biggest question mark.. it’s hard to picture them being worse than last year but.. think our d-backs and LBs should be improved but I also don’t see how our small d-line doesn’t just get pushed around.

I love the optimism. I can’t imagine us being in the range of 15 this year although there will be many opportunities to prove it. i would like some of the same kool aid that you are drinking.. serious question.. what gives you optimism that we are a top 15 team this year?

Looks like we play all four of this guys top 4 this year.. 3 at home. Seems like as good of a setup as we could ask for and plenty of opportunity to prove the voters wrong. Looks to me that UND is ranked correctly.. while I hope I’m wrong (and will be at every home game.. along with my mostly empty other season ticket seats). Feel free to raise your hand and disagree but I don’t see us in the top 25 or in the upper half of the MVFC. I hope the new offensive coordinator totally surprises me and the defense has a pulse this year.. but I’m expecting our peak is somewhere in the “other teams getting votes category”. Hope I’m wrong.

Generally agree.. Im more amazed that WR stay at NDSU than leave.. maybe Landry will change that offense but I doubt it.. A dominant o-line, solid rbs and running QBs.. why throw?