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Irish

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Posts posted by Irish

  1. We need to pull out all of the stops and go for a victory. What really frosts me is that when the Bison go to Minnesota they go in with a swagger, play aggressively, take risks (lateral on an interception etc) while we take a knee on the 50. While we finally had a game plan that worked and showed some adjustments especially on the line, Mussman's lack of stones cost us. Come on coaches, cowboy up for a change. We have shown some real strengths in the last two games. Let's go for it.

  2. I normally cheer for the Bison in non-UND matchups - especially out of state or playoffs that we aren't involved in - Not that I like them much, but because the represent North Dakota. However, Bison fans have been so obnoxious lately, some even on the Sioux chat board, that I am cheering for the Goofs this week.

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  3. I agree with your analysis regarding the criticism Mussman chooses to make publicly. At the same time, and I'm speaking as a former defensive player here, it is a bit of chicken and egg. Yes the defense is out there a long time, but why? They can't make a stop on 3rd down. If they stop on third down, they are off the field. That's what the opponent's defense did, made a 3rd down stop. As a defense you have to hold serve in that situation. The opponent made a 3 and out happen, you must do the same. From a defensive perspective, allowing an offense to drive the field on you is the negative equivalent of your offense going 3 and out. Neither side of the ball is doing its job. The offense has just as much validity in saying to the defense "make a 3rd down stop" as the defense has in saying to the offense "get a first down."

    The defense does seem far ahead of the offense - that being said, I totally agree with you that the D has the ability to get off of the field with timely third down stops. I've mentioned this before, but was accused by green_sioux of not being worthy to carry Mussman's clipboard - here goes - from my observations the d backs, specifically the corners seem to give a huge cushion to the receivers they cover. Teams seem to be able to pick up 5-7 yards at will. Don't you think some of our inability to hold on 3rd down is due to this. It seems we'll allowed ourselves to be marched on 7 yards at a time all game as long as we don't give up any bombs. I know that I am not the only one with this opinion. We let the Idaho QB complete 15 in a row. I know he and the receivers are up one division from us, but come on, 15 in a row? I wish we would get up in someones face once in a while. Your thoughts?

  4. If we get beat by a team with superior talent, so be it - I have no problem with that

    I would like us to look like a team who came to play and plays hard until the final whistle. I would like Fresno to know they had been in a football game.

    To that end, I would like the coaches to look like they are trying to win - come up with some aggressive schemes on both sides of the ball. We have some good young talent - we need to instill a Fighting Sioux attitude in this team. That starts at the top.

  5. You are talking about general frustration with multiple games, but you do not provided specific examples so it is hard to respond. As to being 4th of 4 Dakota schools, UND is 3-1 vs USD during the transition. So, head to head UND has held its own with USD. USD has had some nice wins EWU and UM (overal last year sub .500 record - plus they lost to Lamar a first year program) but they are a senior dominated team this year. This is going to be a big year for USD. I picked them to win the Great West this year. But it will be interesting to see how they rebound after that in the following years. SDSU beat UND head to head last year but UND had a lost season after all the injuries at WR/QB. Plus, I think that SDSU had a 500 or less record last year. NDSU had a nice transition, but they followed it up with a terrible 3-8 season and backed into the playoff last year after a terrible loss at MSU. They are less than 500 in MVF play - NOTE: Going off of UNI fans comments - I could be wrong. So, all Dakota programs have struggled at times. The thing that I have noticed with FCS play is the QB is the most important position on offense. If you do not have one - defenses will shut you down and you can not hide that position. Back in the DII days you could get by just running the ball. I will be honest with you I do not really care about the other dakota schools. UND needs to get ready for the Big Sky which is all about QBs/WRs/CB - much more wide open football.

    Let's see the QB that you are talking about redshirted at Arkansas, then played 1 year of JUCO, then start two games and played in 6 games as a So and then played in 8 games as a Junior. Yes, he is a first year starter as a Senior - but not the wide-eyed rookie you portray. All of the receivers are very good and step above the FCS level talent. UND was down a starting CB yesterday and I was impressed with several plays down field by Brown (RFr). The biggest problem yesterday was with the offense and not maintaining the ball to allow the defense a rest and to break the rthym of the Idaho offense by putting on the bench for an extended period of time. The other factor was field position - they worked with a short field on two of those TD positions. Give credit to Idaho - they stopped trying to force it deep and went to the short stuff. UND did not come out of it because they stayed with a bend don't break plan.

    UND is out manned when playing FBS teams right now. They don't have that level of talent. I thought that they did a good job of mixing things up to get the lead but to get that lead they had to throw everything at Idaho from the start. Once Idaho adjusted not much you could do - give Idaho some credit. Again, the offense is too young right now run a sophisticated offense so they have to stay vanilla or it will get worse. I look for the offense to improve throughout the season. I do like some of the things that I see will Bradley but he does have some limitations right now.

    I think that you are forgetting about a Poly game a couple of years ago Poly was up by 10 or 14 and UND came back to win. Poly was ranked 16 at the time.

    I think in two of the USD games that UND out game planned them... I believe that UND went wildcat several times and caught them every time in the other game they caught them with overloading one side of the line multiple times and USD got caught each time - Shepard never beat UND.

    I was at the game - bad lose no doubt.. lets see - SDSU lost to Div III - Stig is still coaching... USD lost to first year program Lamar - Ed's still coaching.. its one game - move on..

    It is not unheard of.. I see it in many games. I think a lot of it had to do with the maturity of the offense at this point and the 2 to 1 time of possession. He did not want to risk putting the defense back out on the field.

    - see above - I noted a couple that I thought of right away

    The offense is struggling right now and they have struggled since Landry was hurt. It is going to take sometime to get it back up to speed. They had to go outside the program to bring in QB and the exposive weapons on offense are young.

    Although I don't agree with most of your points, I appreciate that you have taken the time to back up your points and not made this personal. While I don't have time to respond in detail right now, and nothing is all black or white, I still believe my points are valid. Hopefully we can work out of this rut, but I feel changes need to be made, if not in coaching staff, then in game prep and philosophy.

  6. I'll admit to being frustrated and rather hard on Mussman.

    This comes from more than one game - I hate to be 4th of the 4 Dakota schools

    green_sioux pointed out several of my "statements" he took offense with

    I'd like to engage in a civilized discussion about these or any other points people have about Mussman's performance so far.

    We'd rather give up 10 yards anytime our opponents want rather than taking a chance and maybe getting beat long" is one of them - My reasoning? - Watch the games and see how we cover receivers. Yesterday we had a quarterback in his 2nd collegiate start complete 15 in a row against us - I don't think the problem was playing too tight on the receivers

    Making absolutely no coaching adjustments at any time and getting out-coached almost every game" again from yesterday - we were up 14-3 at one point - who did you think made the better adjustments in the game? Did you watch the Sioux Falls game? who did you think won the coaching batttle there. How about running the clock out at halftime? What kind of philosophy is that? I'd love to hear about some times that we made adjustments that turned the game in our favor.

    Crappy offensive play calling game in and game out" - I stand by this statement and am open to any evidence to the contrary. Again, running out the clock at halftime.

    My point is - if you think I'm wrong, give me some evidence to the contrary - Personal attacks at me show a lack of any valid argument.

  7. My point is you don't know enough to make those judgements. It's easy to complain, but you aren't there. Or, have never been there. You weren't just giving an opinion, you went past that. Have you coached or played college football? No? You can have your "opinion" that you know better than a person who's been involved in college football for a long time. Doesn't make you right, but sure, you can have an opinion...........Like some of your opinions "Crappy offensive play calling game in and game out" - "Making absolutely no coaching adjustments at any time and getting out-coached almost every game" " We'd rather give up 10 yards anytime our opponents want rather than taking a chance and maybe getting beat long" "Mussman? The fact that we don't have an experienced QB is a reflection on him. " Those are some of the "facts" as you see them. I'm not questioning your football expertise, it's obvious you have plenty of that when seated behind a keyboard.

    Don't agree with me - fine - make your points - You have mentioned several of my opinions - let's hear your arguments as to why I'm wrong. I could do without the snide comments you seem to make "when you are seated behind a keyboard".

  8. I still like him. But, more importantly we absolutely have to go into next year with a stable staff.

    Know - it - alls on message boards who never played or coached the game have all the answers. Fortunately adults will make the decsions about Sioux coaches, not anonymous experts on fan boards.

    Irish, tell us about your college football experience, coaching, recruiting, playing, etc.................. Like I said, since you have all the answers why don't you volunteer your support to the team?

    My point isn't that I like Mussman so much. I just don't claim to have all the answers based on reading the sports pages and watching the games.

    Boy, do you have strange logic. I'm not a movie director either, but I could give you an opinion on who is good by the movies they put out.

    You attack me like I'm lobbying to get Mussman's job for myself - I'm not

    I didn't say I was a better coach, I'm saying that Rob Akey (Idaho), Craig Bohl, John Steigelmeier (SDSU), Mat Houk (USD) and many others are. Even non-coaches can judge the success of football programs by won-lost records and by watching the games and the product they put out.

    I never said that I have the perfect offensive and defensive schemes waiting to be implemented - I'm saying based on results that Mussman's aren't working real well. Mussman's tenure has been riddled with the type of poor performances that we saw in the second half. I'm also enough of a football fan to remember when it wasn't like that. If you think that attacking my football expertise makes Musssman's program look better, lot's of luck.

    I'm not the one being paid $104,000 to put out a competitive football team. If you can deal with the facts instead of attacking me, tell me the areas so far that you think Mussman has done an above average job and the areas where he has done a below average job - getting stuck by an NAIA team ,in my opinion, is an all time low for North Dakota Football.

  9. I am not sure why people are getting so excited, UND wasn't supposed to beat Idaho this past weekend and they not supposed to beat Fresno State next weekend, UND is in it's final year of a trainsition from DII to DI FCS, the team they lost to is a FBS team, which is a division above them. I would wait till the Sioux UND starts playing in the Big Sky before we start judging the football coach. It will be a lot easier for Muss to recruit talent once UND has a home for it's athletic teams.

    Amongst the many reasons are such items as:

    Getting our A's kicked by an NAIA school and not giving us anything to get the taste out of our mouths

    Going from the best of the 4 Dakota schools to the worst

    Making absolutely no coaching adjustments at any time and getting out-coached almost every game

    Not playing to win

    Consistently playing so loose in the secondary that a very average at best QB can complete 15 in a row on us. We'd rather give up 10 yards anytime our opponents want rather than taking a chance and maybe getting beat long

    Crappy offensive play calling game in and game out

    Ruining any home atmosphere we had

    The constant recruiting whine - before the move it was "we can't compete with NDSU because they are division I" now its "we can't compete because we're in transition"

    Giving us undisciplined play game in and game out

    Not appearing to make any improvements to the program - every year it's the same old crap

    Last - having the ugliest Sioux uniforms I can ever remember

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  10. It's just unfortunate for us that a guy like Coach Mussman, who played big time colege football and who has been coaching at the college level for about 20 years, doesn't have you vast knowledge on mattters of coaching and recruiting. (Some of those Sioux offenses he directed were anything but vanila) You really should get out from behind your computer and share your expertise and carefully explain to Coach Mussman how to correct his shortcomings.

    I know this is a place to express opinions, but is sad to read how much more knowledgeable some of you actually believe you are than our current staff. I'll take 7 or 8 or more vanilla wins this year.

    How do you like him now?

  11. I know I'm in the minority in saying that I liked all the new uniforms of the major schools- it's very refreshing. I liked the Maryland uniform the best. In regards to our uni's- I do agree that they do change considerably in color, once sweated in. I actually liked them when they came out of the tunnel. Thought they looked good, but as the game progressed with different shades I was less ecstatic. I once new this, now I fail to remember, but there is an official green for the UND Athletics- it's a number - what number that is I don't recall. I'm sure someone knows this, but I'm drawing a blank. But the one thing I do remember about researching this many years ago is that the green is a bit brighter than some of the apparel that is available out there. There is a lot of Sioux apparrel out there that to me- seems too dark. Too much like the NDSU green. I don't much like it. I like our green to be far more distinctive than theirs.

    There is a Sioux Green, and you're right - some of the green shirts etc are much darker - However, Sioux Green does not resemble the green on the football uniforms.

  12. Official roster is now up with updated heights and weights. Once again it looks like our defensemen will be very big, Gleason is the only one under 6' tall. Blood lost weigh, maybe we will notice him being more mobile on the ice this year. Dan Senkbeil is a big guy, 6'4 215 freshman, I wonder how much we will see him on the ice this year. Brock grew an inch and is now 6'4 192. Brendan O'Donnell comes in as a very thick freshman, he is 6'0 200. Looks like Dell had a big summer, moving up to 209 lbs from 191.

    Anyone in the know have any worries about Dell's weight gain? I'm not suggesting there are, but an 18 pound weight gain stands out. It could be solid muscle. A few more pounds on Brock and he'll be a monster

  13. It's just unfortunate for us that a guy like Coach Mussman, who played big time colege football and who has been coaching at the college level for about 20 years, doesn't have you vast knowledge on mattters of coaching and recruiting. (Some of those Sioux offenses he directed were anything but vanila) You really should get out from behind your computer and share your expertise and carefully explain to Coach Mussman how to correct his shortcomings.

    I know this is a place to express opinions, but is sad to read how much more knowledgeable some of you actually believe you are than our current staff. I'll take 7 or 8 or more vanilla wins this year.

    Think Mussman has done a great job so far - make your case.

  14. I went to the game and I also tailgate as often as I can. I went to watch a football game. I saw a methodical and careful win. A nice win the program needed to have. We are starting a qb that would have been a redshirt freshmen if he came here for his freshman year. But, not even having that year under his belt in the system, I think the coaches understandably kept things basic and safe. I think it was a great start to the season. Against an FCS team that has been around for a while. He showed flashes of being something at qb that we haven't had for a couple years. He could be the qb that takes us into the first 2 years of the BSC. I also saw a Sioux defense pitch a shutout.

    But, If you go to a college football game and worrry about "production values" and a "chick interviewing people in the stands" you just might not be the one to judge the "product they put on the field." Possibly you would be more at home at a Monster Truck show.

    Agreed that our QB is the equivalent of a red-shirt freshman. However, who's been in charge of recruiting for the past 4 years - Mussman? The fact that we don't have an experienced QB is a reflection on him. If we have to rely on being careful and methodical at this point in our home opener against a team that doesn't give scholarships, that says a lot to me - none of it real positive. The fact that you think this "redshirt freshman" gives us something at QB that we haven't had for a couple of years says a lot too about our transition. Bottom line is that we need something to be fired up about and Mussman is giving us vanilla all the way.

  15. A year ago I may have agreed with this. I think Jones is building a pretty good basketball team right now. I'm looking forward to the upcoming season, which is something that I couldn't have said a couple of years ago.

    The soccer team also made some strides at the end of last season and are not doing too badly this season. Swimming and DIving continues to improve and will do fine in Division I.

    Football has me most concerned, but maybe things will change in FB this year like they did for BB last year.

    Ok, I might have been a little harsh on the Swimming and Diving team. The men's BB team has progressed - they are no longer getting beat by the DAC teams like Mayville State. The move to D1 was mainly pushed by the "football only" crowd. We heard two completely opposite whines from them. Before the move it was "we can't compete in recruiting with NDSU because they are Division I". After the move it was "we can't get any top recruits because we aren't playoff eligible". OK football program, it's time to put up or shut up. Two years ago we got smacked by an NAIA school. Last year 3-8. So far this year we look uninspired with the addition of trashy high school quality video for our games. We don't appear to try to take it to anyone. A full year of this scheme and there will be about 5000 people and no students at home games. Time to show us that we're ready to compete.

  16. I went to the game on Thursday and regularly tail gate...The game was crap, the environment was terrible, and the product on the field was laughable...Needless to say, it will take alot more improvement for the Football team to represent the Fighting Sioux...Maybe its a blessing the name goes away as the Football team probably doesn't deserve to use it anymore with the product they put on the field. Lastly, I go to the hockey games and that is a real, professional product displayed night in and night out...The football game was a hyped version of what a high school puts out for production value...a screaming chick interviewing people in the stands and she couldn't even say Season Ticket holder at the delivery point of her interview. Additionally, the crowd was dead for most of the game and again the cool stuff they try to do with the video screens is no better than a monster truck show. Try getting some training from the folks at the Engelstad and maybe the tickets are worth the free price I paid since they were being handed out by many at the tailgate event....God help us when we actually play D-I talent on a regular basis.

    BobIwabuchiFan

    At the risk of being labeled a hockey only fan (I'm not, but have been very critical of Mussman and the product he puts out), I have to agree with Bob that the crap they put up on the screens is downright embarrassing. Fire the crowd up with sharp, aggressive play. Please dump the video crap that makes us all look like idiots. I know they are trying to fire up the crowd, but do it with play on the field. During the Lennon years we didn't need this high school side-show.

  17. I think the problem that we have with the excitement level is that we have a coach who is trying not to lose. I attended a game last year and the guy sitting in front of me was from California and was just there to watch football and wasn't cheering for either team. At halftime he turned around and asked me "what is wrong with your coach". It was his observation that Mussman was trying not to lose. I watch a lot of Saints football and one of the things I like about Payton is he isn't afraid to take chances.

    The Sioux need to get back to the Lennon ways and play to win.

    I think this is a question many more football fans need to ask. At least I haven't heard the "we're doing the move to D1 right" drivel lately. We aren't with the exception of the volleyball team.

  18. You make the point for exactly why we need to be in the Big Sky. We need to have a conference, something to play for and build some rivalries or we will continue to see crowds like this or worse.

    It's not all the lack of a conference although the lackluster schedule is a big part. It's also lackluster play from Mussman's teams for the past couple of years. Absolutely nothing to get excited about.

  19. A couple points:

    1. TV broadcast: Sweeney and Mac Schneider. I like these guys but they were an absolute snooze fest. No excitement what so ever. First game of the year -- show a little enthusiasm.

    2. Our uniforms -- boy do we need uniforms. Lets get some style and please put the damn names on the uniforms.

    It's been mentioned before, but what's with the faded pea green color - the uniforms are horrible - that's not Sioux green

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