wheelsup

new kicker today? and the extra point looked easy. ok.. lets have the defense show up now!

Obviously. Most coaches would be starting Jerry Kaminski instead of having him #4 on the depth chart. So when you say most.. are those the coaches that are above or below us in the rankings this year? What seems to get lost in all of these comments is the general fact that UND is currently ranked 11th or 12th, depending on what poll you decide to follow, in the nation. We had a very reasonable chance to win our last game against a decent Boise State team and I expect us to have a chance to win against the #1 team in the nation on the road in what will likely be a tougher game than the Boise State game. Not too bad for a coaching staff that cant recruit and also cant figure out which true freshman to start. Probably what annoys me the most is you kissing some random SDSU fans butt and going out of your way to say how big of a disappointment Tommy is when that person actually had the nerve to say Tommy is pretty good.. Hope you are wearing your Jackrabbit colors this weekend. I am really excited about the game/opportunity this weekend SDSU is #1 for a reason. It will be a very tough game for us.

So what is the slant of this enlightening take? I thought the previous takes were that Bubba and Company cant recruit good talent. Now the take is that our backups & freshmen are so good they should displace all of our starters at all skill positions but our coaches are just too dumb to see it every day in practice? Any starters we should keep? Hopefully at least the offensive line . SMH

sounds like he got a little banged up in the UNA game. I believe he was dressed on the sidelines for Boise but did not play.

Ok.. Ive marinated in the despair of the Boise game for long enough. I still think this team has potential to make some noise. I think we bounce back and Im excited to see how the crew responds to an obviously disappointing loss in another tough environment. I wont rehash the kicking game challenges. Im excited to see our running backs continue to improve. The return of Skokna has brought some real excitement to that group, Ziebarth has done very well and I hope that Isaiah is recovering nicely on the bye week. In addition to the passing game I really hope Danny takes what is given to him and pounds that rock! Our o-line and RB's can get the job done.

Other than that.. how was the play Mrs Lincoln? i guesss u are generally correct.. kickoffs were mostly good.. I recall one pretty mediocre punt but I think most of the other ones were good.

I disagree with this statement.. I think there are at least 4 that would win (NDSU, SDSU, MSU, Sac State) and another 5+ that "could" win.. Boise was very beatable yesterday. I aso dont understand the statement of UND being where they or us want them to be. They certainly arent where I want them to be.. and Im reasonably confident that they arent where most of us want them to be including Bubba. I would have been much happier this morning if our losing effort didnt include the special teams struggles and the turnovers. My hope is that these issues are all fixable issues (botched snaps / missed xtra points / turnovers), and that this was the teams bad game on the road this year. Tommy and the offense are way better than they showed yesterday.. the defense looks like its continuing to improve and its time to have a great game down at SDSU.

The bad.. Schuster had his worst game that I have seen him play.. poor passes.. bad fumbles etc. the snaps were very poor many times we were able to run the ball.. Danny just didnt seem willing to take what he was given kicking game and lack of confidence in the kicking game is inexcusable.. bad punt as well multiple missed pics.. right in the DB hands really bad game by siegal. the decent our defense kept us in the game for 3 quarters while the offense really struggled we had chance after chance to make this game competitive.. super painful Other if we struggle with a running QB.. NDSU will roll us to all of the special teams apologists.. I dont see NDSU or any other college team regularly missing extra points etc. I realize Kostich didnt miss the extra point.. but he is the special teams coordinator and has been for the last 10 years or so.. he recruits and coaches these players.. somehow the extra point is still an exciting play for UND.. ITS TERRIBLE.. ITS AUTOMATIC FOR MOST, many high school teams dont have this level of excitement in the xtra point. Spare me the kostich didnt miss the extra point B.S. The extra point miss didnt lose the game.. but it put pressure where there shouldnt have been.. at the end of the 3rd quarter it should have been 21-28. this game was totally winnable.. totally winnable.. By the way.. Im not as negative as some.. I expect us to be very competitive against SDSU and have a chance to win that game as well. A week off will help this team and we should be ready to rock . This game was winnable.. Im super disappointed... unforced errors

A couple of thoughts.. KK has taken a lot of crap on this forum.. he has played a lot better this year. He had a great pass breakup during this last game and I havent seen any plays yet like last year where he was running across the field behind somebody on blown coverage. Also.. kid must have some shoulder issues as he comes over to the sidelines multiple times a game looking like he has dislocated his shoulder. Seems like a super tough kid. Defense continues to improve. Obviously this trend needs to continue but I am more optimistic about the defense based on the two games so far. Our talent and depth seems to be significantly improved over last year. I wasnt worried for a single minute during the game that we were going to lose it. We can complain about the last 5 minutes (for all the haters out there.. Bubba also expressed signficant disappointment in the finish).. but overall compared to last year this game was smooth sailing. It was great to see skokna back in there.. the kid runs hard.. is super fast and fun to watch. I feel very good about our RB talent, I wish they would have skokna/red returning kicks and punts instead of Belquist and Siegel. I hold my breath every time those two guys are back there on punts and kicks The kickoff game continues to baffle me.. I cant believe he doesnt have the leg to kick it into the endzone (if he doesnt there are probably 10+ North Dakota High school kids a year that can and do) and so it must be on purpose. Not what I would pick but Im only an old guy on the internet. Sometimes Danny still gets too cute for my liking.. sometimes when you are ripping off 8-10 yds a carry you do that until they stop you. I love how they are involving Quincy. They already have shown a nice progression of options on the Q sneak play. I think Siouxfan97 has point on Tommy's deep passes.. I also think he is completely delusional on replacing him with a true freshman. Danny sees these guys every day in practice and games and if he thought we had a better chance with one of our other QB's i think he would replace Tommy in a minute.. Tommy is awesome and we are lucky to have him. He is tough as nails and makes great decisions over and over. I wish he would have played his Freshman year (2019) versus having to suffer through watching Ketteringham (who also threw a nice deep ball by the way) Im looking forward to an upset in Boise.. Defense has to keep improving.

I remember when you used to wait for a crappy loss to jump off the bandwagon.. this year you jump off after a 55-7 win. The game wasn’t perfect and there were clear improvement areas.. it was also totally dominant. Drake never even looked like they had a chance. I wish you would save the bubba ball reality comments for when something bad happens. People are pointing out, reasonably so, that northern Arizona has some good players.. a lot of transfers that have some talent. It was their first game of the year and so they probably aren’t as bad as they looked against Arizona and they might give us some trouble. Bubba has changed a lot in his time at UND.. you don’t give him enough credit. I’ve given him as much crap as many.. I still think the extension was undeserved.. but he has changed.. he was a defensive coach hoping the offense didn’t lose the game. Now he lets Danny roll. I wish we had one of our old defenses. as I said before.. I expect a good victory.. we will see the margin based on our defense which hopefully continue to improve.

This to me is the entire issue.. I dont really think I should have to call someone to say hey.. do you think we could have a decent amount of new UND football merchandise at the UND football game. Fans might be interested in buying some inside the stadium and not have to go over to the UND bookstore or Hockey Arena to get some gear. By the way I dont care if they sell a single shirt.. its more of an image thing. Ive had multiple friends/family members/alumni come to the games with me and comment on the lack of ability to buy merch at the game so I would guess they would sell a shirt or two. hey.. new idea for you.. at the football game would it be possible to make sure the PA system worked well enough so that I can hear what the ref is saying when he/she makes the call after replay etc? hey... it would be really fun to be able to see the stats on scoreboard during the game.. you know like you can at every other college football game and even some high school football games these days These "ideas" seem like no brainers to me.. entry level marketing type stuff (Ive heard we have a good business school). When I hear someone say that it was supposed to work, but it didnt, it really seems like an entry level effort.. not a Division 1 athletics effort. This is one of the areas I tend to agree a bit with UND-FB-FAN.. its an attention to detail thing.. its an image thing.. its an effort thing. If they can figure it out at concordia or the other school close by we should be able to figure it out in Grand Forks.

I don’t think the current state of UND football aligns with your bubba ball comment. Back when our defense led the way I would have agreed but now I think our offense will put up a bunch of points and defense will hopefully continue to improve. I hope to see a dominant offensive effort, continued improvement on defense and significant improvement on special teams. My prediction is 41-whatever our defense can do. I’m not sure how many missed field goals and extra points are in that 41.

The alerus really needs to get their crap together. There were a couple issues during yesterdays game that should get fixed immediately! 1) the PA and the ref were both on at the same time. You could not hear what the ref was saying for his calls/reviews 2) I saw an usher chewing out a group of boys for having the nerve to stand and cheer while our team was on defense. They must have been blocking some grey hairs view of the game. 3) is it too much to ask to have a little merchandise for sale at the game? there were like 3 small racks.. and we are still selling the same GameDay shirt from about 10years ago. 4) seems like we could put a little more effort into the entrance. there were 8500 fans there.. might as well kill the spirit of the faithful that showed up. I know this is heresy but go to a bison game.. they have stacks of merch for sale all over and their entrance stuff is pretty cool. Feels like the alerus and/or our marketing group are just mailing it in for UND football. These seem like short putts easy to fix with a little effort.

In addition to the dominant win Im hoping the new uniforms have a readable font so my old eyes can tell the difference between a 3 and a 8 and a 9 etc. LGH!

You are right.. the season is over if we start 2-2.. even if we beat NDSU and run the table.. smh It’s foolish to even think anything other than a 4-0 start could allow a successful season. If we lose on the road to the preseason favorite in the mountain west and/or the overwhelming favorite in FCS the season is over.. fire bubba.. kostich and the rest of them. There is no hope of a good season! SMH.. These black/white, lack of any nuance arguments u make are really old. I’ll continue to believe 2-2 still gives us the opportunity to have a great year.. to beat NDSU and a deep playoff run. As I said earlier.. I’ll have a different opinion if we start out 3-3.

I think you struggle with a simple logical argument. The entire point of schlossmans article and our previous comments, was that 3-3 is way different than 2-2.. if we start at 2-2 it is still possible to get to 9-2 and a home seed. At 3-3 obviously that is no longer possible. In order to get a home playoff seed we need to start knocking off teams that we would have historically lost to. In rough order our toughest games this year are Boise State (on the road).. SDSU (on the road).. NDSU (at home) and UNI (on the road). One can make the argument that BSU and SDSU might be about the same with respect to toughness (we need to win at least 2 0f those 4 games). So it is reasonable to not throw the season in the trashcan if we start out 2-2 whereas I will be quite disappointed if we start 3-3. I havent read any commentary from anyone on this site that doesnt want to go 11-0 and doesnt want to beat BSU, SDSU, NDSU etc.. but it is clear.. 2-2 is way different than 3-3. The only person misinterpreting the article seems to be you.

So a true freshman has more ability this year and would give the team a better chance this year, than a guy who is on the preseason Walter Payton Award list.. Preseason All-MVFC.. and will likely own every UND QB related record. oh.. and jumps Feeney. Need to think that one through again.

If only there was an example of where it took a head coach that long to turn around a program.. Let me think.. maybe even something in the Missouri Valley.. maybe one of our regional historic rivals.. SDSU? Im not saying Bubba is Coach S.. but FFS lets roll and be a little optimistic on the 2023 Football thread not the fire bubba thread.

The difference between 2-2 and 3-3 is that at 3-3 we prob lost to NDSU at home. Losing to NDSU at home versus SDSU and Boise state on the road are significantly different with respect to the overall direction of the team. All I’m saying is give this years team a chance before you jump off the bandwagon. They look to be significantly improved over last year to me and so I have high expectations and even if they start 2-2 they still have a great path to a great season.

This is one of those terrible takes.. as if we lose to the near unanimous preseason best team in the FCS.. and a legit FBS team both on the road early in the season it is somehow over and the team is destined for mediocrity. Not to mention if you somehow accept anything less than 3-1 or 4-0 that you have accepted mediocrity personally. That is quite a nuanced view . Now if we are 3-3 after 6 games Ill start lining up a little closer to your negative view, but will be counting on a strong finish and multiple playoff wins. By the way.. Ill still be at every home game this year wearing my kelly green colored glasses expecting Bubba and the crew to get the job done. Im beyond excited about the offense this year and think the defense is going to improve enough for us to have an incredible year.

If we are doing new jerseys please use a readable number font!

#MakeUNDnumbersreadableagain

Have there been any decent spring ball updates this year? I always thought Miller had a couple Herald articles and some other folks regularly posted on here. I haven’t seen much of anything but wondering if I missed it.

Agreed.. Erickson looked solid last night. Doppler was very underwhelming. Jeremiah looked better as well as the two kids from red River. Hopefully it was just a bad game for Doppler.

In general I agree with this post.. I’m not exactly sure what portion of the safety play this last year gave the confidence to Bubba to elevate our safety’s coach to the defensive coordinator spot. What would have been the harm in posting the position and doing more of a national search while potentially bringing in some outside ideas. His most important qualification seems to be that he has spent all of his time at North Dakota football. that negativity aside.. I hope he is a great coordinator and brings some continued youth and excitement to the defensive side of the ball much like Danny has done for the offensive side of the ball. Let’s go hawks!