mksioux

This is 100% correct. If the Big Ten wants ASU, that's where ASU will go.

I'll likely be voting for Roughriders, but NoDaks is at least under consideration. It seems so obvious that the NoDaks option should be "Fighting NoDaks" that if they announced that change, I suspect it would be the new nickname. It sounds much better, and a lot of people want to maintain Fighting in the name. I wonder whether there would be flexibility afterward to add Fighting if NoDaks were to win?

I like the idea of sticking with an intro song from year to year. Consistency is a very important thing for fan experience in college athletics. Getting students (and others) to know the traditions and routines is key. Things like the intro song, the cheers and chants, or something like Wisconsin football does with "Jump Around" are all very important to developing the fan experience. Consistency leads to people recognizing it, knowing it, and eventually participating in it. The routine then becomes a tradition and they get passed down to the new students and it keeps going.

College football is really a game that needs to played outside, in my opinion. As to weather, sure Grand Forks is a little colder, but Brookings and Minneapolis aren't exactly tropical. It looks like attendance in Brookings is hit and miss at the end of the year, but I bet very few of their fans want a dome. And TCF has been good for the Gophers. I've not heard of anyone longing for the days of playing in the Metrodome. (I acknowledge FBS is differently situated than FCS as there are no home December games to consider.) Despite the potential for some late season stinkers, I have a feeling the same thing would happen if they built a new outdoor stadium on campus at UND - nobody would be longing for the days of playing at the Alerus Center. But if they're going to stay in a dome, they might as well stay where they are.

I love the idea of going back to campus. However, if UND just puts another dome there, I think that would be a waste of money. If UND is going to play in a dome, the Alerus Center is more than fine. It just needs some tweaks; natural sunlight, merchandising, a bar, and a plan to increase seating in the future. UND and the City could split those costs over time, and use the millions of dollars saved for other projects. And I'm saying this as someone who would love to see UND play on campus again. I just don't like the idea of putting a dome there. If they have the funds, obviously a retractable roof would be really cool, but I think that's a pipe dream. I might be in the minority, but I like the idea of an outdoor stadium on campus. Obviously attendance late in the season would be a major concern. Is it possible to design an outdoor stadium in such a way to reduce wind impact and utilize infrared heaters to at least make spectators a little bit more comfortable than they would otherwise be on a cold day? I notice some stadiums utilize this, but perhaps it's only effective during mildly cold temperature and wouldn't work in Grand Forks when it gets really cold. Anyone have experience with this? http://www.schwankgroup.com/products/stadium-heaters/

When I typed that, I was thinking the Montana and Montana State games. I think those two could get out of hand pretty easily. I really hope I'm wrong on the Montana game since I'll be attending that one in person.

There was plenty of hockey stuff and non-sport specific stuff. Overall, there was more UND stuff for sale than NDSU stuff, maybe 60/40. As far as I could tell, the football clothing was limited to about one t-shirt and the old Hardin jersey. I agree it's tied to winning. Hopefully in a couple years, I'll be able to go into a store in Grand Forks and buy a new football jersey. It doesn't seem like too much to ask for a DI program. Apparently you're wrong. But even if they did, it wouldn't concern me, no. Thanks for asking. There have always been more UND graduates in Fargo than NDSU graduates in Grand Forks. So I'd expect a healthy UND presence in Fargo. Growing up in Grand Forks, I rarely, if ever, saw NDSU merchandise in Grand Forks stores.

During Saturday's game, I went to buy some merchandise for my kid, only to find out that they don't sell merchandise. I was told they did last year, but apparently the vendor backed out this year, or something like that. I wonder how many other FCS venues don't sell merchandise? Is that normal? It seemed odd to me. Also, is it even possible to buy an official UND football jersey? All they had a Scheels was the black Nike 84 Hardin jerseys. I realize the Adidas jerseys are new, but I'd like to think that a fan would be able to buy a current UND football jersey. Speaking of Scheels, the new store is really nice, but I couldn't help but notice they have A LOT of Bison stuff in there. If NDSU has infiltrated Grand Forks, then I shudder to think what's going on in the rest of the State.

I must get way more frustrated watching the game on TV. I went to the game on Sat. and had a fun time. I came away relatively pleased. Having said that, I don't think the games against the top level Big Sky teams will be pretty.

Thanks for the advice, but I had my multiple kid activities in the morning. Point is, even if they were world beaters against Drake in the first half, that doesn't excuse what's happened since. Am I being overly negative? Maybe. Big deal. This is a message board. There's certainly enough duckies and bunnies on this site to cancel it out.

Pretty hard to watch a game that isn't on TV genius. As for the 1st half of the Drake game, I plead guilty. I was golfing on a beautiful day. I don't regret it.

I don't live in Grand Forks, so it's hard for me to judge, but I'm not sensing a huge hype for hockey yet. I think the main problem in terms of hype for UND football is with the results on the field. After the FBS win, they had a chance to make some real progress in developing hype and fan base, and, let's face it, they blew it. I terrible performance against Drake and not even being competitive against the Bison made a lot of people yawn and think "same old same old" UND football team.

Fair enough. The offense is young. But I think you have to show signs of promise to be labeled promising. Perhaps my perception is skewed because I didn't see the Wyoming game and missed the first half of the Drake game. So the only UND football I've seen this year is the 2nd half of the Drake game and the NDSU game. There hasn't been even a sliver of promise when I've been watching. Nevertheless, I'm making the trek up to Grand Forks this weekend and hope to see something better.

The funeral story is a very nice story, and it appers Bubba is a great guy and natural leader. He surely bleeds kelly green and that's a great thing. But a couple sentences about the actual team being on the "right track" stuck out: I guess it depends on what he meant by "competed." If he meant the game was played, I guess he's correct. But that's not an indication that the program is on the right track. UND certainly didn't compete favorably by any stretch of the imagination. There are a lot of adjectives for UND's offense right now, but I'm not sure "promising" is in the top 100. He could end up being right, but this is more wishful thinking than basing it on what we've seen on the field.

Unlike most on this board, I would very much welcome a Summit/MVFC invitation. But until the MVFC expresses a willingness to take UND, there's nothing to discuss.

UND got killed and complaining about that play doesn't change anything. It just makes us look like we're trying to grasp on to any conversation that distracts us from the fact that UND football still stinks. But at least we have another shot at them in 4 years!

UND is 2-1, but I think we're seeing that record means very little. Their two wins came against perhaps the worst team in FBS, and barely beating a bad non-scholarship team that just got throttled by a formal rival. And the loss was a blood bath to the arch-rival. While a loss to NDSU was expected, many people were at least hoping for a respectable loss, which didn't happen. I can't think of a more meaningless 2-1 record. The same people that are spinning the NDSU loss into "it's not as bad as it seemed" are the same people who thought the Drake "win" wasn't as bad as it seemed. The Drake game turned out to be much worse than originally thought. South Dakota showed what an FCS team, even one expected to be in the bottom half of their conference, should do to a team like Drake.

If this team doesn't make any improvements, there are probably zero wins left on this schedule. Two more wins assumes some improvement. More then two wins assumes a lot of improvement.

Every team has fair weather fans and UND could use a TON more of them. Absolutely pointless to disparage fair weather fans. If all you have are hard core fans going to games, you end up with what's been going at the Alerus Center the last several years.

Looks like I'll be cancelling my sports tier. Three games is not worth it. I guess I have a decision to make as to whether I go kicking and screaming into paying for webcasting, or just stop watching UND hockey.

If you go back through the years of UND football, I don't think UND ever wore a true kelly green uniform. The 90s uniforms were a pretty dark shade of green (relative to the Nike jerseys the team wore before this year). The jerseys perhaps got a little lighter in the 00s, but they didn't go to a true kelly green until the last round of Nike jerseys in the late 00s. Those Nike jerseys looked too light, especially next to the helmets, which matched the green from the previous jerseys. I think the new jerseys look sharp and are the correct historical shade of green, even if that means they aren't a true kelly. Just my opinion.

I agree with this. In addition to talented offensive players leaving the program, Bubba put some athletic guys that could have played either way on the defensive side of the ball. It will take more than one season to rebuild the offense. I guess after the Wyoming game, I was getting greedy and thinking that maybe they pulled off a miracle and would be respectable this year. After watching last Saturday, I think it's still a couple more years away. The offensive line is a long way away I'm afraid and they're primarily playing two true freshmen at running back. And put that together with a young QB and no true play makers at wide-out, and it's a recipe for disaster.

Sorry - I meant the offense. Yes, the defense is much better than Mussman's defenses. But UND's offense is worse than most Mussman offenses. Before Saturday I thought UND had finally turned the corner with the first FBS win. I thought maybe they put together a respectable offense to go along with the good defense. Now it looks like the same old inept offense as last season.

Haha. D'okay. I'll try not to post until I can be duckies and bunnies. It really doesn't matter what I said. What happened today speaks for itself.

I've purposefully not posted in this thread, but the optimism of UND fans is delusional. I didn't see the Wyoming game, but what I saw today was an embarrassment. UND does not appear to be any different than a Mussman team. Minimal talent. Offensive line sucks. Running backs suck. No heart. Abundance of mistakes. Drake dominated UND in the 2nd half. F...in DRAKE! NDSU by at least 30.