Irish

Much as I am sick and tired of Bison fans, they proved themselves on the field and earned this.

Wow - it only took two games to bring out the old "have some beers and think you can coach" conversation stopper. Can the "what's the highest level YOU played at" be far behind? I have been impressed by the defense so far - not that I think they can overwhelm a good team, but we have cleaned up a lot of the Muss frustrations - playing hard, tackling, putting on pressure, and attacking. The offense - not so much. Not a lot different from the Muss years - an O line that gets little push, reliance on an underweight running back when other options are sitting on the bench, and mediocre quarterback play. Some of this may be related to talent, but why oh why don't we give other running backs a chance? Molberg seems to play just well enough in the pre-season to win the job, but has yet to show much in games. Overall, I think Bartles did a better job last year. He is young, but there are lots of teams with quarterbacks in their third year with the team that have improved much more. Apparently he is barely winning his battle with Bartles, but he is losing the battle with his main comparison - the expectations people had when he came. I know he is hampered by his surrounding talent, but I expected more at this stage. There - my opinion and because it is Sunday 2pm I'm not drunk - but this a fan board.

I know he is working under adverse conditions with the state of our O line, but when was the last time Molberg showed anything like what we expected of him under game conditions. He was given the number one position for the second year, but doesn't seem to be able to hold it.

Nice sidestep - I think everyone knows the answer but no one is willing to admit it.

It wasn't mine to move -

You are a poster that seems pretty with it and plugged in to the powers that be - I'll ask you the question I posed earlier and no one responded to - "How long would have Muss lasted at NDSU?" - Seems like the answer to this explains the current state of the two programs.

This is our 8th year of our current suckhole. How much time do you want.

It's sad to say, but here "on track" has come to mean not giving up during the game and not dicking around on the sidelines. That's how low we let this program get.

I believe that much of the current differences in our programs can be explained with the answer to one question: "How long would Muss have lasted at NDSU?" - Not only was he tolerated here, many on this board actively defended him and regaled us with tales of how great each recruiting class was. I know it is sometimes a fine line between being a fan and being a critic, but it seems we have a much greater tolerence for medioctrity up north. We don't demand winners. Should we invest more money - sure, but that's only a small part of the problem. It isn't that hockey steals the money, it's that hockey steals the intensity - Muss has another crappy team and it's "hell with it, I'll go hunting until hockey starts". Where as down south football is all they have. There if Bohl has a couple of sub-par seasons after a couple of 10- 1 years it's "by God, he better get it together and right now". They demand success, we hope for it. Right now fans are fired up about Bubba. I hope that translates into increased attendence, funding, and expectations. I hope we have the collective will to demand and support a winner.

And we haven't come close to showing that yet. I'm so tired of hearing from Bison fans I could puke. How did we let our program get so far down this Muss-hole? I am really frustrated about our lack of demanding a winner.

I certainly liked the tone Bubba took in the paper today - we have some areas we need to improve in and we will work hard to do that. So much more refreshing than the toe to toe crap we used to hear. I really believe Bubba has an accurate handle on how this team performed and we will improve greatly during the season. That's what coaching is all about.

That's something I don't want to get used to. Seems like we have gotten used to quite a bit over the last 7 years. And I think asking how we are going to approach our offense given the state of the O line is a legitamate question here on a football forum.

Ah, yes - vintage Sioux Football forum - wildly over-optimistic before the game, critical of anyone who provides analysis or comments that aren't duckies and bunnies afterwords. No one is freaking out. What they are doing is discussing the ass-whooping we recieved (and probably should have expected).

I fully understand how many games we've played. I think it's a legitimate question to ask - can we continue our philosophy of establishing the run with our O line? Unless these guys get better in a hurry or unless you think that SJSU has by far the best D line we will play, we have a lot of 2nd and 9 and 3rd and 7's in our future. That's not to say we can't keep this philosophy for the future - we just need some hogs to make it work.

I will be interested in seeing what happens to the offensive philosophy. I'm happy to establish the run and play a little smash mouth, but when your first down runs end up with a yard or less, things get dicey. Our attempts to establish the run ruined our offensive chances for at least the first half. How long do we keep this philosophy with our line? Thanks to Muss's fine recruiting, it doesn't look like we will be pounding much of anything against most teams.

I wouldn't call the penalty phase of the game one of our strong suits tonight.

Bubba's first move when getting back should be sending out guys to recruit their asses off. Quite honestly, if he brings a team like this to the Fargodome next year to play a game that UND had to bend over to get, I will be pissed beyond belief.

Sadly, I have to agree with you. This is his 3rd year in the program and we have yet to see anything like we were led to expect.

I guess it's down to that now.

Absolutely no push from the O line

I thought we were done with stupid penalties this year.

I sure hope there is less jacking around on the sidelines as that may be our only area of improvement.

Pounding the rock only works if you can actually pound the rock.

For some reason this ground my gears more than almost anything in the Muss era - especially when you add the smack talk.

Where did I say UND couldn't win - I was critical of Faison, who to the best of my knowledge has no eligibility left. My comment was to point out that we accepted an offer from the knuckleheads down south that was a deliberate insult.