star2city

With the Foundation's sudden change with regard to Chapman, perhaps a big potential donor gave an ultimatum: either Chapman or the donation.

No surprise that UND beat Chicago State by a combined score of like 75-30. If UND can win the the next couple of home games vs Utah Valley and South Dakota, they'll have a great chance of finishing the season with a 12-0 run.

By next August, everyone would be keyed up again. Hope springs eternal.

Never meant to infer that a legislative session should involve themselves in this. My point was that the those state senators and reps that are sitting on the education committee want to see some sort of agreement on this: those are the same people who introduce education bills. How much sense did it make for UND to pay Stony Brook around $100 k, and NDSU to pay Wagner about the same amount?

It's clearly been in UND's interest to resume the series since we moved up to DI, but will recent events down in Fargo change their thinking? They need to continue selling season tickets: it's their bread and butter for revenue and teammakers. A UND game would help renew season tickets that might otherwise drop their tickets, as UND-NDSU game tickets are not easily available in single-ticket form. Chapman is gone: the legislature and SBoHE would almost certainly want the series resumed. The interim and new presidents wouldn't have the clout to prevent it. Both teams need wins. With both teams rebuilding, next two seasons aren't really that meaningful for either team. The only ones fighting this will likely be Taylor a few diehard bison fans that are still deluded enough to think UND football is "beneath" them.

Same thing happened to Mertens: he was idolized by their fans as a 17 y o EGF QB and then thrown to the wolves when he didn't meet their "playoff" standards. As if Mertens could have single-handedly delivered the bison a winning record.

Try again: the Great West is rated higher than all other AA leagues except the Colonial. BTW, Indiana State lost to Qunicy, a low level DII team that plays an NAIA schedule. CONFERENCE CENTRAL MEAN SIMPLE AVERAGE TEAMS 1 PAC-10 (A) = 79.64 79.27 ( 1) 10 2 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 78.97 79.04 ( 2) 12 3 ATLANTIC COAST (A) = 75.16 75.32 ( 3) 12 4 BIG EAST (A) = 74.68 74.81 ( 4) 8 5 BIG TEN (A) = 74.23 74.21 ( 6) 11 6 BIG 12 (A) = 73.88 74.26 ( 5) 12 7 I-A INDEPENDENTS (A) = 71.97 70.65 ( 7) 3 8 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 70.08 70.13 ( 8) 9 9 WESTERN ATHLETIC (A) = 67.31 68.36 ( 9) 9 10 CONFERENCE USA (A) = 64.88 64.15 ( 10) 12 11 MID-AMERICAN (A) = 62.63 62.26 ( 11) 13 12 SUN BELT (A) = 60.77 60.33 ( 12) 9 13 COLONIAL (AA)= 60.19 59.61 ( 13) 12 14 GREAT WEST (AA)= 58.17 57.77 ( 14) 5 15 MISSOURI VALLEY (AA)= 56.39 56.63 ( 15) 9 16 BIG SKY (AA)= 55.95 55.62 ( 16) 9 17 SOUTHLAND (AA)= 50.26 50.32 ( 17) 8

Was referring to the program: it's depth has been dropping for years but few seemed to notice because of the W-L record. Agree that those last D2 teams were definitely better than this one. The Offensive line pipeline somehow was disconnected 4-5 years ago: lots of recruits that dropped out of the program. The LB situation was worse.

3 INT's by UND Own turnovers and incapability to move the ball in the red zone killed Sioux chances in this game.

Players like Weston, Chappel, and Murray as well as an experienced OL made this program appear much better than it was in the last few D2 years. The defense hasn't been good for some time. Just the fact that UND needed JC transfers for OL and LB show how much a deficit position Mussman was in. Getting a JC transfer for skill positions like WR, RB, or even at the DL would be normal. Needing JC transfers for OL and LB shows there was a desperate need: Lennon left with the cupboard bare.

So you'd rather freshman not redshirt? Not exactly a way to build a program.

With the additional scholarships and more travel, UND's budget probably exceed's Indiana States.

Would the players execute better if the fans want the coaches gone? If we did get a knew staff, would anyone actually want the job at the current pay scale?

Roger Thomas was building ....

Vandrovec

28-3

In many respects, Sioux football isn't all that well supported. Bohl at NDSU practically gets paid more than the whole UND staff. Lennon and his whole staff are basicallly paid double what their UND counterparts are.

And SDSU fans had a lot of patience with Stig. UND started this season needing help at OL, LB, a young DL, big question marks at RB & WR. Those issues haven't gone away.

Goska in. As long as Mussman puts out an improving team, the recruiting continues to improve, and there are no major off-field issues over the next few years, Mussman is safe. Changing a head coach because of the impatience of fans is practically a sure way to destroy a program. This isn't the NFL or high $ FBS program.

But, we have hockey! You don't have hockey! If UND went FBS because of the BTHC, it be would inevitable that NDSU would attempt to follow the FBS route and forget about BSA upgrades. Rather be in the post-Boise St WAC with Idaho, Montana, Montana St, Utah St, Nevada, Cal Poly, UC Davis etc than the MAC. An FBS UND could practically get annual games vs the Gophers. That would be the type of schedule that would get the state and alumni excited. UMinn could still schedule FCS schools, too, like USD, SDSU, NDSU.

After further thought, I think the Big Ten has significant motivation to desire FBS membership among potential hockey affiliates and those reasons are primarily monetary, not status. The Big Ten needs a lower level FBS league around, so that they can freely add home wins to their FBS schedule. Playing the MAC adds at least 10 wins a year to the Big Ten overall record. The MAC games are relatively cheap because of limited travel, don't require a 1:1 or even a 2:1 (except for lower attendance teams like Northwestern or Indiana), and allow more Big Ten schools to go bowling. The SEC and the B12 benefit from two lower-level conferences in their midst: CUSA and Sunbelt. The Big Ten has to throw the MAC a few bones to keep the MAC from starving: MAC FBS too important to the Big Ten. It's to the Big Ten's benefit to have more lower-level FBS teams around: keeps the game rates down and provides for more visiting fans. The western Big Ten, especially Minnesota and Wisconsin, needs more MAC type FBS schools to schedule. FCS schools really are of limited value to the Big Ten's primary money-maker: football.

Lennon did incredibly well with the resources he had to work with. But I'm not sure why Thomas would have put the screws to the program, other than finances weren't Roger's strong suit. I still submit that Lennon knew that lean years were in store for the program: a down year or two and his marketability would have been gone. The total SIU offer was just to good to turn down, even though it meant a year away from his family.

Southern Oregon is a very winnable game, even if we play like today. If the Sioux should somehow lose to SOU, major changes need to be done to the coaching staff.

A DIII loss didn't destroy SDSU's recruiting. A lot of factors go into recruiting. If a recruit in Wisconsin is choosing between UND, NDSU, SDSU, and USD, would UND losing to USF be a major factor in the decision? Doubtful.

In a strange wasy, wasn't really all that shocked by this result. There were only two positives from this loss: It serves as a notice to Sioux fans of how far Sioux football has to climb to be a factor for FCS playoffs. It happened during the transition. SDSU lost to DIII UW-LaCrosse during their transition and, with the same coaching staff, moved into the MVFC with a more than respectable team. USF was better coached, more disciplined, their defense tackled and seemed quicker, the offensive line could pass and run block, the QB was multi-faceted etc. etc. DeBoer, like USF's Leavitt showed at Morningside, might just have the talent to become a BCS coach. Again, two years ago when Lennon left, he knew there was wasn't sufficient talent left after Dressler & Co. The cupboard's only being restocked with the last couple of classes. It's painful, but hopefully the wait will be worth it. 2012