bincitysioux

Here is a link to Dale's public interview from a Bozeman TV station. It is a little easier to access than the one on Bigsky.TV. Forum video

I don't know if anyone already brought this up, but I heard on KFAN and ESPN radio today that saturday's game 3 tied with a rerun of the West Wing for the lowest rating in the history of NBC.

All of the NCC schools staying in DII now have conference homes. MIAA adds Nebraska-Omaha to conference

UND is ranked #4 in Lindy's 2007 preseason poll. UNO and USD are also in the top 10. Link Lindy's Magazine NCAA Division II Preseason Top 25 1. Grand Valley State (Mich.) 2. Northwest Missouri State 3. Chadron State (Neb.) 4. North Dakota 5. Bloomsburg (Pa.) 6. Nebraska-Omaha 7. Delta State (Miss.) 8. Valdosta State (Ga.) 9. South Dakota 10. Indiana (Pa.)

Good stuff. I am able to watch every Montana St. and U of Montana football game on the satellite dish that I use to pick up the FSSN. After 3-4 years of watching Kramer coach, I admit that I have never been impressed with his coaching ability, nor with the way he carries himself. However, I chuckled watcing that press conference when he mentioned he was recently a candidate for the Head job at Idaho. It is his alma mater, and I remember earlier this year when he took himself out of the running for the vacant position that he had a good chance of getting. Then I remember hearing he was fired a couple weeks ago and thinking to myself, wow, what a way to reward Kramer's show of loyalty to Montana St. Oh yeah, and if MSU chooses Coach Lennon, I hope that Kramer wins his lawsuit.

We could learn alot about Coach Lennon's pusuit of the Montana St. job by going here. MSU will provide a free webcast of each candidate's public forum. Rob Ash of Drake was tonight. Lennon will be on Wednesday at 6:00 central time.

You'll have to refresh my memory. When have I named a potential successor for Dale Lennon?

Good point. However, "The Ralph", is a nickname. Like calling the Montreal Canadiens the "Habs", or the Cleveland Indians the "Tribe". The NCC used to be called the "Big 9". So why do we call it the NCC now? Because that's its name.

I agree with pretty much everything BisonKent said. Montana St. (despite recent troubles) is probably one of the top 10 or 15 most attractive coaching positions in FCS football. Perhaps UND will be someday too, but not for a minimum of 5 years, and I'm guessing it'll be a bit after that. If he took the job, he'd have a legitimate chance to contend for a Division I National Championship in 2007. The biggest thing that makes coach Lennon a great coach is his decision making ability. As much as I hate to say it, if he were offered the job, the right decision for him would be to take the job.

Call me crazy, but I like to call things by their name. I call Pro Player: Pro Player. I call Monster Park: Monster Park. I call Minnesota St.: Minnesota St. I call FCS: FCS. If my name were Bill, I wouldn't want to be refered to as Bob. BTW, I thought this thread was about Lennon and Montana St., didn't NDSUFREAK start thread in the football section for this name discussion?

Very well said!

Here we go again.................. What was Brian Jones' head coaching experience prior to UND? I will now excuse myself from getting into a discussion about who should replace Dale Lennon until Dale Lennon needs to be replaced.

From today's Herald

I don't think Lennon would consider this job had UND moved to DI 4-5 years ago when NDSU, SDSU, and UNC left. Had we done it at that time, there is a good chance UND would either be in the Gateway conference or Big Sky by 2008 which is where those 3 schools ended up respectively. He has been in the pro-DI camp all along. UND football is going to be in the best position of any of our sports during the transition, but long-term, they'll likely be stuck in the non-autobid Great West. Although UND football will likely be the first UND sport to have a conference home in the Great West, by the end of the transition when we are playoff eligible and hopefully have a conferecne for the other sports (best chance is the Summit, which probably means GWFC membership for the long-term) it is likely that at that time UND football will be in the worst shape conference wise being in the Great West with still no auto-bid coming in the forseeable future and probably still only 5 members or six at the most. Dale has to do what is best for Dale. Football-wise, I think that going from UND to Montana St. would be considered a lateral move. But big picture career-wise it would really be very attractive for a great coach like Dale to take a job that would make him the Big Cheese at a school where football plays second fiddle to no other sport (unlike UND) and coach in an established auto-bid leauge in which Montana St. is already competetive in year in and year out. I wish Dale the best of luck whichever way he goes. I would hate to see him leave UND, but I could certainly not fault him for pursuing this opportunity.

Van Diest has to be the fan favorite because he's a known commodity in Montana. The question is will the higher-ups at MSU feel that it would be too big of a jump to go from NAIA to what is often expected to be a Top 20 FCS program?

South Dakota head coach Ed Meierkort is one of the 10-11 candidates for the Montana State job. He did a phone interview this week. USD Board Meierkort has done well both at the DIII level and more recently DII the last few years with USD. If he is a candidate on the "short list", I'd have to assume that Dale Lennon should be too.

As a farmer, and seeing as how it was getting real dry, I love this weather!

I know this is against my better judgement, but I just can't resist to comment.............. Actually, after 10 years of Mason at the helm, I feel that I could have been named head football coach at UMTC and that alone would have sold out a game against Minnesota State Technical and Community College. At least that is what I gather from my uncle who is a UMTC alum, booster, and season ticket holder. The fan-base was very down on Mason. I agree completely. Maturi is a smart guy. Maruri was smart enough to get rid of Mason (despite his track record of fielding winning teams and making bowl games, he was taking UMTC nowhere), and smart enough to get rid of Monson and then convinceing the legendary Tubby Smith to take over a floundering basketball program. He's also spent some time over the past year lobbying the higher-ups at UMTC to reconsider their policy against playing schools with Native American nicknames obviously for the specific reason that he wishes to get UND on their sports schedules. Like I said...........smart guy. Considering that Maturi is such a smart guy, I wonder what he and UMTC fans think which is a bigger, more potentially entertaining and profitable rivalry to pursue is: One that dates back one season to a single game, or one that goes back 70+ years and has routinely had conference and national championship implications? Hmmmmmmmmmm..............................................

It takes money to win. There's nothing wrong with exposing our kids to the highest caliber of opponent as we possibly can.

Only thing I know of is Montana St. at the Betty on Dec. 28.

What about the rivalry?

Assistant Coach Ryan Moody was on Tim and Swyg this morning. He said the schedule would likely be released in the next few days. He mentioned the Iowa St. Game, and also said that UND will host a tournament over the Thanksgiving weekend that would include UM-Crookston, Western Oregon, and I think he said a team from the south which has been to the Elite 8 or maybe just the playoffs for the last 4 years, anyways he said they were a very strong opponent. He also said they'd be playing Adams St. from the RMAC.

IIRC, last year's schedule wasn't released until late June or early July, so I wouldn't expect anything for at least 6 weeks or so.