Wilbur

The spear is on fire....maybe thats what makes it okay? Or the fact that the guy dressed as a native american tries to intimidate whoever it is that Florida State is playing.

So what is the name of the law office that I send my check to in reference to suing the NCAA? Once the nickname goes there should be no new nickname. Just the University of North Dakota.

True. I always wonder how long the current coaching staff at UND will stay in place. Will Hakstol want to try the NHL like Blais did? Will Eades jump ship when a top tier program needs a new head coach? Does Dane Jackson want to be a head coach again? Makes me think how lucky the Sioux are to have the coaching staff that they do.

That would make sense. Playing his junior hockey in Lincoln, then chugging to Omaha. Then again though, by the time Luke is ready to play college hockey will Blais still be coaching? Thats two to three years away, and you never know with Blais.

Speaking of WR's that didn't make it all four years here....what ever happened to Ismael Bamba? Did he continue to play college football somewhere? Just think about the type of career he could have had at UND....

Which is what we've seen as of late....

Yes, I believe this is true. He applied to coach the women I believe a couple years back. Not sure if he has ever applied to be an assistant with the men. Someone with knowledge of the situation want to spread some light?

That would be a great conversation to hear. If you are Steve Johnson, what do you tell your kid who walks up and asks you if he should play for your alma mater or the team that you are currently on the coaching staff of? I mean you would think he would want his son to play at a place where he would see plenty of ice time and develop into a player who has the opportunity to play at the next level, while also fitting in to the team. As a Sioux fan I of course think thats the Sioux more than it is SCSU, but of course SCSU is a good place to play your college hockey as well. The Johnsons will have a big decision to make, I guess the same could be said for the Lucia family with their son. I wonder if it would affect a recruit's decision on whether he would join your program. For example, "Your own son didn't want to play for you, why should I play for you"?.....

Gosh I miss having Bubba Schweigert as the defensive coordinator. You talk about a blitz happy guy who made sure that a QB knew when they played the Sioiux. Or like you would say, he liked to interrupt the "Launch".

I think I opened a can of worms with the secondary talk....alright! Didn't seem like the Sioux blitzed a ton last year because they were afraid to leave man on man coverage in the secondary. But like the wise Sicatoka said this left for QB's with way too much time to pick apart a young secondary. So what do you do.....do you blitz more to try and disrupt a QB's time in the pocket, or do you drop more men into the secondary in an attempt to have more in the pass coverage package? Where is Scotty Schultz when you need him? Or Digger....Digger was great at Blitzing the A or B gap when it was called for.

Dad played for the Sioux.....Uncle Chad played for the Sioux....family in Grand Forks.....only makes sense right?

Playing for Uncle Chad....good call for Luke. He could play junior hockey for at least four years before joining a college team. I don't think he'll use up all of his junior hockey eligibility, probably be an 18 year old Freshman playing somewhere.

Does anyone know where Luke plans on playing this year? I believe Lincoln has his rights correct?

If Hendrickson is such a great team guy you'd think he would move to another position to help out the team if thats what the coaches felt was the right move. I know I've said he should switch positions before, but I truly feel like he could help the team by playing wide receiver or maybe even returning kicks. Heck, he could line up in the secondary on defense....those guys didn't cover anyone last year...

I suppose it helps that Texas has full time high school football coaches while I don't think you would ever see that in North Dakota.

Yeah, he didn't look like the guy at all last year. You wonder if he is one of those All American players in practice that can't put it together in games. Right now he's #3 on the depth chart, and with the kid from California coming in I don't think he'll get that much time under center.

The school I used to teach at formed what was called an "Athletes Lifting" PE class. The problem was that too many kids considered themselves athletes, and they could only have this a period or two a day because the school I was at didn't have a bevy of PE teachers that could teach the class. This created a clogged up weight room with kids with different lifting routines, and not a lot has gotten accomplished since then. I would be in favor of allowing teams to have like a spring camp weekend during the school year. Where your Juniors and down can have a weekend of practices or football drilling together. Each team in North Dakota is allowed to do a camp during the summer for a week or so, but thats so close to the season getting going that its almost like an add on to the beginning of fall camp. Once again though, this would conflict with spring sports......

I've heard this as well. That he is kind of "the players choice" to be the starting QB, like Manke was a couple of years ago.

Pretty good points. I think if the Sioux lose to Sioux Falls again it may be the end of the Mussman era for UND football. I don't care if they are the national champions of NAIA football, you aren't supposed to get beaten by those schools. A Dale Lennon team would have never lost to an NAIA school. I think anything less than an 8 win season would be a disapointment. And please....lets stop someone on defense this year.....

I like the idea of spring football, but in North Dakota a lot of your football players in the fall are playing baseball, track or golf in the spring. With the size of the schools in North Dakota we have to have a lot of three sport athletes to keep some of the programs going. If I look at the high school football team in the community that I live in and go position by position, 95% of the kids are involved in a spring sport, and put their football pads away from November until August. With the addition of spring football I think you'd see the end of a baseball, track, or golf team because of lack of participation. But you are correct, we would have better football players.

I agree, but I don't see North Dakota becoming more competitive in high school football. I mean you watch a game on Friday night in North Dakota (even at the AAA level) and a game in California or Texas, and its completely different football. Part of the move to DI football meant that less and less kids from North Dakota would be seeing the field for the Sioux, and I'm still in the denial stage about this.... There are simply better athletes in Texas, Arizona, Missouri, California, etc. And if UND wants to schedule games against Texas Tech, Fresno State, Idaho, they'd better go out of state to get kids to keep the game close.

I'd love to see the gophers win by thirty, but I agree, it just won't happen. Brock Jensen is an okay QB for the Bison, but I don't see him pulling a Steve Walker against the gophers for the Bison. NDSU played just about a perfect game to beat the gophers at the dome, and the Gophers made a ton of mistakes (including a HUGE roughing the kicker at the end of the game). I'll say Gophers 24....NDSU 14. But its not an upset if the Bison beat them.

Not a lot of North Dakota/Minnesota kids discussed in this recruiting thread....guess its all part of being a DI football program. I'm going to miss the days when the Sioux had QBs from Cogswell.....defensive backs out of Red River High School.....great running backs from Washburn, and speedy little receivers from Bismarck.

I saw plenty of the pistol last year. The high school football team in the town I lived in ran that offense for their entire season.....and surprisingly only won two games because it seemed everything was a second or two off. So basically it was watch crappy offense on Friday.....watch crappy offense on Saturday....then Vikings on Sunday..... I would like to see the pistol holstered....

Agreed. To run the pistol offense you need the threat of a QB that can outrun an opposing defense, and UND didn't really have that last year. That and you have to make quick accurate throws which the Sioux didn't have either..... I wouldn't mind seeing the Sioux get back to more of a pro style formation going out of the shotgun once in a while to spread teams out a bit. With Solum at FB I think that gives them the opportunity to do more stacked backfield formations as well which sets up play action passes. Like I said, cautiously optimistic about this football season.