Irish

Glad to see them expand their entertainment - although I have to admit I was a little bit irritated to have to go through a metal detector to attend a craft show there last weekend. A solution in search of a problem.

I do think this team is way better and has a lot of potential especially with the defense and goaltending. I was just commenting on what I have seen up front. I think we have enough pieces in place that our scoring can jell. I started out commenting on the lack of puck movement, crisp passing, and shooting on our power play and mentioned that some of our difficulties in my opinion was related to talent. I'm not sure why this comment is such a bad thing.

It was never the talent that was in question. Actually it was because of his talent that he was criticized for his record in Frozen Fours.

I agree that the talent is better than last year - but there was no where to go but up. I still think our talent up front is below the usual Sioux teams. Compare this group with any of the forward groups during the Hakstol years. You can see the difference. We still have problems with crisp passing and handling feeds. Many of our shots are wide or into the goalie's chest. Our leading returner from last year had 10 goals and a -6 rating. I like our additions and think if they develop we can be a good offensive team. However we are not yet where we need to be. We do have potential this year but we have work to do.

Last year's power play was brutal. This years is just ineffective. The basic problem is that we lack puck skills - in passing, handling passes, and shooting. This is a talent issue first and foremost. Restructure all you want, but if we have guys who have to think first and tee it up we will not improve. The best thing Berry could do to improve our power play is hit the recruiting trail. There is no way we should be short of scorers once again.

Although better than last year we are still offensively challenged. Not many crisp passes or good looks in front of the net to say nothing about odd man rushes. 0 for the power play too. In my opinion this is a talent deficit. After taking most of the first period off we worked hard. We just need some more puck skill up front.

It would be nice if we could see some progress on the street construction. It looks like little progress has been made lately.

I have season tickets on the student side and would love the opportunity to move more to the center. And I stay all game.

I'm not sure that calling out our absolutely lackluster and punchless play for most of the game constitutes "jumping off the bandwagon" - especially when we have seen this play before (see last year).

The season is young and hopefully this team will put it together. I would be less concerned if I hadn't watched our team flail about in a similar fashion all last year. If I were to describe our championship year's team I would use terms like crisp, hard forecheck, relentless, snipers, and deadly. It is amazing that I see so little of that now. It is just like night and day. We need to figure things out and hopefully we will. I hope the changes put into place will take effect. Still, it was nice to get a win out of this mess of a game.

Every coach's teams have bad days, but this is a consistent theme with Berry.

We are rapidly becoming the place that scoring goes to die.

Boy, Berry has given us a lot of frustrating, impotent hockey.

And st. Clown and Duluth

This discussion has really veered off into the nonsensical - We are not dropping Football nor are we dropping back to Division II. And no, it's not the Hockey Program or their fans fault that football is not successful. Does football need more support and financial resources - absolutely. I would suggest that 6 years of Muss followed by a somewhat better but equally frustrating 6 years of Bubba is a big culprit (along with administrative absolute mis-management of potential doners like Sanford and the Englesteds among others). Every time we think the program has turned the corner we get something like this weekend. Every time. It's hard to generate fan donations and enthusiasm when we have been so mediocre for so long. Will things like phase II be a big help in the overall program - no question. However, not having phase II is not an excuse for what we have been seeing from this program. How Chaves handles this program after the season is over will tell you much about how much athletic success we can expect across the board in the future.

And the way UND seems to move on Football related issues (Rudy for example) in 5-10 years we'll get right on it.

If by this you mean Bubba's teams crapping the bed then you are absolutely correct.

Bubba tells them that we need to keep on doing the same thing only more so. And by the way Ket is my guy.

I can understand the new economic reality - I don't like it much but I get it. What I absolutely hate is the barrage of Bison football and Gopher Hockey stories that we are now subject to as we continue to get the Fargo Herald.

At this point while I believe there is frustration with this call, most of the venting is about Bubba's body of work in these situations.

A new week and we have a great chance at being a very respectable 4-2 at his point in the season. The good news from last week is that we showed a lot on both sides of the ball in the first half. Let's play a full game and come home with a win.

Thanks for the analysis - here's what I see - and I would include the series right before half - the one where we took a knee. - As I count this we had 10 first down plays before the final drive. Of those we ran on first down 6 times results in yards: -1, 5, 2, 0, 0, 1. When the game started to get interesting (series 4,5,and 6) we ran all three times on first down for a total of 1 yard for all 3 plays. Up until the very nice last drive our longest play that was not called back was 10 yards. Included in the passing attempts are 2nd and 8, 2nd and 10, 3rd and 5, 2nd and 9, 3rd and 14. Although we had a mix of pass and run plays we kept no one off balance and were usually second and third and long.

They do, however, recruit and coach the guys who do.

I can see why this is a tough thread for some especially after we won a big game at home. And I agree that many teams have had second collapses. However, for others it was confirmation that Bubba was still Bubba - I think when he finally got rid of Rudy we thought maybe he had grown some. He will always be the guy who gets the ball before half with a reasonable shot of getting into field goal range with a time out to use and instead starts thinking about how the other team might in some bizarre way get momentum if we try and mess up. He will always be the guy who with a lead at halftime starts to look at the clock and starts to figure out ways to milk it. He will always be the guy who is usually out-adjusted for the second half. He will always be ultra-conservative - every time. For many of us this is very frustrating. We were two very stupid Davis penalties away from letting this game get away.

It's ironic that a nice home victory over a tough opponent also shows us the extremely frustrating side of Bubba's game management and strategy.