Irish

Go away troll

We crapped the bed against an old rival at home. Not much more to be said.

It is absolute nonsense to blame Hockey for the woes of Football - Most fans are fans of both and like myself attend both sports. The new indoor practice facility is an example of the support for football. There is only one way that a successful Hockey program affects Football - the demand for a winner from the fans. For fans of both, it is convenient when Football starts sucking to feel "well, at least we have a good hockey team". The pressure to perform here is nowhere near what it is in Fargo for football. Sioux fans have an incredible tolerance for mediocrity and crap as evidenced by Muss's lengthy stay. How long would he have lasted at Fargo? In fact, after the Sioux Falls fiasco, I and others who pointed out how bad this was were taken to task by many on this board who felt Muss was just fine. Even into his last year he had a number of supporters here. When we as fans start demanding a winner things will come around faster. Add in a couple of incredibly poor AD's and here we are. Time for the AD to feel pressure to bring us a winner in Football and Basketball (same thing applies - an incredible patience for crap here too)

Yes, like having the qb throw some slants or quick outs - and by the way, he has your guy on the bench whom he could put in (and should put in if we have no one to make those throws. He calls a weak high school game.

Then you would think he would have learned some ideas to use when the defense plays 8 in the box. He is the weak link as far as I am concerned.

Geaux_Sioux makes some good points about our expectations and correctly points out that Bubba needs time to get his guys in place (and appears to be an excellent recruiter). In addition, injuries have hurt us greatly. It helps to keep these things in mind. However, there are a few areas that need to be improved that no pass should be given. We have been blown out twice by superior teams (NDSU and Montana - no heartburn here). In addition to these blowouts, we have had 3 of the worst 4th quarters I have seen as a long-time Sioux fan - the entire Drake second half, and Idaho State and Weber State. I know thin ranks hurt us here, but these meltdowns were of epic proportions. Compounding this, we have an O coordinator that seems incapable of coming up with a scheme to handle an 8 in the box defense. I really thought Bubba Ball would eliminate some of this type of play. Other areas the coaches need to work on - the turn-over battle is killing us, we have poor coverage on kicks and seem to make poor kick return choices, and we seem to have a lack of quarterback development. As a fan it is really hard to know how to feel about this team - Like Geaux said, it isn't our record, it' how we got there. I think we need to remember that many fans are smarting from at least 8 years of wandering in the wilderness and had high hopes early this year. Their frustration on this board doesn't translate into poor support on game day. We are pretty hard core fans here - I hope we can get more of the casual fans back.

In several areas including game time adjustments the coaches aint looking like geniuses.

Bubba certainly has been given a grace period (and probably deservedly so given the mess he inherited) - we have all of our eggs in the Bubba Ball basket - smash face football appeals to Sioux fans because it is far from Muss and because that's what we played (although we had great QB play) when we were a DII power. However, this may be Bubba's first test - do you do something with an O coordinator that has been out-adjusted almost every game and has made poor personnel decisions or do we plan to wait until we have an Alabama type line and pound the rock? We have to have a counter to "8 in the box" or we are going to be in for a bad time. If Woody Hayes were dropped into the Big 10 how do you think he would do? Stop the run and establish our run may not be a complete formula - Bubba's challenge now is one of being flexible. I hope he can because if this is a bust we will approach two decades of futility. Time for Molberg.

I 100% believe this and think it is all the more reason Bubba deserves some heat for today's fiasco. It is unbelievable that a good, hardworking kid who gave us great QB play right before he was hurt is not given any chance to play no matter what happens on the field. Bubba is looking a bit like a square peg round hole guy.

Not saying fire Bubba or anything like it, but I think it is reasonable to criticize the type of game we played today and put some of that on the coaches - Even with our talent gap, this is a pretty far cry from what we were given to understand Bubba Ball would be. In my opinion not assignment sharp, poor play calling, the fumbles, the previous 4th quarter meltdowns - Sure Bubba should get more time to get his guys in place, but in my opinion Sioux fans have a huge tolerance for poor football.

Discussed it a little? I'm wondering if we were sold a bit of a bill of goods with Bubba by the Good Old Boys. Not impressed with where we are at or how we manage games - everything from turnovers, special teams (receiving and coverage) to playcalling to the putrid fake punt. Not assignment sharp at all. It's one thing to get beat because of talent, but another to get beat because we lack fundamentals.

At this point I think Molberg could return punts better than Seibel too.

Actually, our 3rd stringer is better than our 2nd stringer too.

Yet Molberg gets no chance - pathetic

Wow - if you woke up from a 2 year coma and immediately tuned into this game you would swear Muss was still coaching. If Molberg doesn't get a shot I will have serious doubts about Bubba's ability to run this team. No excuse for leaving Bartles in.

I don't always agree with you but you always seem to have good info and an interesting insight. I totally agree with this post, however. If this is how they treat good, loyal kids it will come back to bite them. At this point it is purely ridiculous that Joe isn't getting a shot. I have never been impressed with Rudolf and firmly believe Joe is getting hosed for some unknown reason. Implying that Bubba would never do this because he is Bubba is pure circular nonsense. He is allowing Rudolf to do this. In my opinion, Joe played himself into the starter position before he got hurt and has not been given a chance since. Doesn't speak well of our program.

I want a hamburger, no a cheesburger - I want a hotdog

Not by the fans or by demand of the fans but by a series of pathetic AD's with support from the administration. Although there are certainly fans that favor hockey, never have I heard anyone call for cutting funds to other programs - most were very happy with football success - If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at the AD's (looking at you, Bunning). The way people are talking, the hockey fans stormed the AD office and demanded a cut in football funds. I have close contact with athletes during the Bunning era and their universal conclusion was that he was an idiot. I agree that we have had a string of poor hires including the AD and Muss, but it is not the fault of anyone in the hockey program.

Actually, the two terrible quarters are just in the last two weeks. We have 4 games in which we played horrid 4th quarters - Drake, NDSU, Idaho, and Weber. What frustrates me is that we don't appear to have learned a single thing from any of them. We have been consistently out-adjusted. When teams stack the box we have no comeback or plan - we have a good QB on the bench who deserves a shot and couldn't play much worse. I understand the idea of Bubba Ball, but it only works if you have the horses. Coaches seem to have a square peg-round hole mentality. There is a fine line between staying the course and being stubborn.

Maybe I'm extra frustrated because crapping the bed in the 4th quarter is the exact opposite of what I expected from Bubba Ball. I thought by now he would have mentally tough, assignment sharp teams, not this crapfest we have been seeing in the 4th quarter.

There are two schools of thought on this

I understand your point about the talent and am not calling for Bubba's head by any means. However, there are certainly some things about this version of Bubba Ball that I thought would be much better by now including poor special teams play, turning the ball over, many missed assignments, bland play calling that gets worse in the 4th quarter, the lack of effective half-time adjustments, poor communication at times, and horrible end of game collapses - these are things that are to some degree coachable. After the Muss era, in my mind we were promised more discipline on the field and on the sidelines. - Well, the sidelines are cleaned up. I guess for me it's not so much that we lose, it's how we are losing. And "hockey only" posters are right - we will not build a strong fan base of support with play like this.

So - Bubba and staff once again get out adjusted at half-time and blow a very winnable game and you're mad at Hockey fans? Even if they are a bit fairweather for football the problem is more on the field at this point. Maybe time for the staff to feel a little heat?

I understand the injury situation and limits on talent and recruiting that Bubba has - but - what we are seeing that passes for "Bubba Ball" is just crap. At this time in his second year I at least expected an assignment sharp, mentally tough team that sometimes got beat on talent but didn't beat themselves and were tough to play against. I don't expect to be out-adjusted every half time and to pee winnable games down our leg. Missed blocks, poor execution - at some point that has to be on the coaches. Not impressed so far. Time for the team and coaches to figure it out.