RD17

I think Grafton and Mayville are OK facilities (although they both can get packed), but the point is that there is something better (The Betty) and it happens to be located pretty darn close to the middle of the region. Yes, those towns might be closer to Winnipeg, but they play 12 man football up there. Do you consider that civilized?

Having the tournament at the Betty makes so much sense that it will never happen. Highway 2 is the dividing line between the two districts, the size of the arena would allow for more fans, etc. Instead of some fans having to travel 80 or 100 miles to the games, the travel would be relatively easy for everyone. I went to the regional championship game at Mayville State a few years ago when two northern teams were playing. The gym was packed before the 3rd place game started. Why not hold the tourney where there is more room for more fans? To those that think the regionals should be in small towns, I'm not the only one who disagrees. Here's a list of where the other Class B regionals are held: Minot Williston Dickinson Jamestown Wahpeton Mandan Devils Lake

I was in Kansas City in December and had lunch at Chappell's, which is number 10 on the list. The entire place has football helmets of different teams hanging from the ceiling. We were seated almost directly below a UND helmet (an old style one with a white shell and the green ND lettering). Very cool. The amount of sports memorabilia in that place was staggering and I encourage anyone who is interested in that type of thing to visit if they are ever in the KC area.

Yes but those two schools are in huge metro areas. UNF is in Jacksonville, which at least to my knowledge, doesn't have another public 4-year school nearby. Kennesaw State is in suburban Atlanta. IUPUI and South Florida are other good examples of other relatively new schools that rocketed into D1 because of a rapid increase in enrollment.

I think Wisthoff and Hermes will be the two toughest guys to replace. Besides being very good players at their positions, they also were huge contributors on special teams. Wisthoff could pass block, run block, and catch the ball out of the backfield and that is going to be missed. Hermes had the combination of strength and speed needed to put pressure on the QB and that will be tough to replace also.

The vote will be next Monday, January 10th. From everything I've been hearing, the measure to reduce scholarships will not pass.

*Note to self* Pay very close attention to what star2city has to say when it comes to the business side of college athletics.

I see two big problems with allowing Division II schools to play in I-AA for football. First of all, most Division II schools that can support 36 scholarships and would be interested in I-AA football are also maxed out on their scholarship money for the women's sports they carry. If a school wants to play I-AA in football and add 27 scholarships, where are the requisite scholarships in the women's sports going to come from? The only option would be to take scholarship money away from the non-revenue men's teams or add more women's sports. I just don't see how very many [i-AA football/Division II for other sports] schools would be able to support anywhere close to 63 scholarships. The other issue is the NCAA's federated structure. Division I, II, and III operate basically as separate entities. The three divisions vote on their own rules and any time you have schools operating their athletic programs across divisions, problems are inevitably going to arise. Example: What happens if a kid gets into a school on a D2 track scholarship because he couldn't qualify at a D1 school. The kid then decides he wants to play (I-AA) football. Is that allowed? There are all sorts of examples like that I can think of. And I do realize that obviously UND plays D1 hockey as a D2 school, but the reason that works is because many of the regulations were grandfathered in or adjusted to be made to work. Football would be a whole different can of worms if you allowed schools to play that sport in a different division.

I think the whole deal here is that somehow, some way, UND/NDSU/SDSU/USD will end up in the same conference again sooner rather than later. Whether fans of any of the schools want to admit it or not, there is too much in common and too much of a history between the schools for them to be split up. The other reality is that the above schools would almost certainly have been in Division I 15 years ago if not for the limiting factor of geography. All of those schools probably "belong" in DI, but when there are so few other DI teams within 500 miles, it's tough to make it happen.

No, I don't know if any of the redshirt receivers made a big splash in practices this fall. The thing that concerns me is that UND had several young receivers (Prestus, Van Dyke, Loegering, etc) and if they were ready to make an impact, I would have thought they'd have seen some playing time this year. Usually if a guy is going to be a big time receiver, you will see them on the field as a freshman or sophomore like Graf and Juhasz were. I suppose some of these guys might be late bloomers like Stattelman, but I'm definitely somewhat concerned about the quality at receiver going into next year.

I agree from the media coverage standpoint, but Central Arkansas is a decent sized school (11,000 enrollment) just outside of Little Rock. They also have some outstanding facilities and an indoor practice facility with the Pepsi name on it, so someone must care. I believe they draw 7K + for football, which is good for a D2 school. I guess my main point is that there was no public discussion whatsoever at UCA before the move was made. There was nothing on the school's website and nothing in the newspapers. If UND had filed the paperwork for a division change without telling anyone, then had it come out in the papers a couple of days later, what would the reaction around here have been like?

Maybe a bit off topic, but this is what amuses me the most about the whole Division I thing: Last week, Central Arkansas (from the Gulf South Conference) announced that it was moving to Division I. The story came out in the papers down there a day or two after the December 1 deadline. There wasn't much fanfare and no indication that anyone outside of the administration had any idea what was going on. Central Arkansas had only been in Division II for about 10 years! Anytime a school up here contemplates making a move, we hire consultants to do studies, conduct surveys, do more studies, conduct more surveys and on and on. Not to mention the 24/7 press coverage and "investigative reports" on the issue. I'm not saying the way UCA is doing things is the right way. I'm sure everyone would agree that the more discussion that goes on and having more information available is much better than leaving everyone in the dark. It's just funny that two different areas of the country can take such complete opposite approaches to the same issue.

To me, this is the key to success next season. Everything else on the team is in place, but without a couple of these guys developing into big playmakers, I think the offense will struggle some again next year. What UND really needs is for another Lueck to land on its doorstep.

I completely disagreed with the decision to punt, and to be honest, this is the one thing about Dale Lennon's coaching decisions that I'll never understand. Before anyone jumps down my throat, let me explain my position: Think back to the SCSU playoff game. Twice Lennon had Jeff Glas attempt 52 yard field goals (the ball was spotted at the 35 both times vs the 41 in the Pitt St. game). The crosswind was absolutely brutal, and IMO, kicking the field goal was a very low percentage play (ie, not taking the conservative rout). Fast-forward to the PSU game. UND had all the momentum, down by one point. As good as PSU's offense is, 21 yards of field position (with a touchback on the punt)means relatively little versus the risk tradeoff of picking up the first down. If you pin them inside the five yard line, great, but the chances of doing that are much slimmer than picking up the first down by going for it. Why UND would throw caution to the wind in the SCSU game while being so incredibly conservative against Pitt is something I can't understand.

I have no idea about the exact dates, but this is what UND has scheduled for non-conference games at this point: @ Central Washington- the game is scheduled for a Friday as part of their Rodeo Bowl celebration. @ Winona State vs Ferris State- I know it's seems strange, but Ferris is scheduled to return to GF next year. Assuming UND plays a 10 game schedule again, this leaves one more non-conference game to be found. I also would be very surprised if UND plays two non-conference games on the road, so I'm willing to bet that UND will get out of the CWU contract. I know I've seen the 2005 NCC composite schedule somewhere, but I can't seem to find it right now. If I remember right, the order in which the games are played is similar to what it was this year (ie, UND plays SCSU early and UNO late) and this year's road games will all be at home next year.

There's no way there were only 8200 fans at that game. My internal crowd estimating device had it pegged at 10,271 fans.

You're absolutely right- the MIAA and PSAC are the big winners in the new regional alignment. The MIAA was 1-6 versus NCC teams in the playoffs since 2000 and to get moved to a region with one terrible conference (RMAC) and one below average conference (LSC) is a huge break for Pitt State and NWMSU. Plus, they virtually get byes in the first round (Colorado Mines) while there is so much depth in the NW region that every game is going to be a war.

I believe their running back (Marana) and the two all-conference linemen that got hurt in the Grand Valley game will be back. Even if the Marana can't play, his backup also rushed for nearly 1000 yards and was named first team all-conference as a true freshman. This is the second straight year where Michigan Tech has had two all-conference running backs. The quarterback (Dan Mettlach) is the big question mark. I've been trying to find out if he will be playing or not, but some say there's no way he will play and others say he will have to wear a brace and might have limited mobility, but he will most likely be out there. I suspect that Michigan Tech will keep this under wraps and no one but them will know until gametime.

I can't believe people are still ripping on Belmore, especially with the struggle Manke had in his only start. I agree that there are some throws he could be more accurate on and stuff like that, but the fact remains that he has thrown just one pick in 87 pass attempts over the past two games when the entire season was on the line. It was tough to throw the ball down the field with the wind the way it was on Saturday and it limited what the offense could do.

I noticed that too. After Morningside left the NCC, they didn't even field a varsity team in 2001. The up side of that is that they made the playoffs this year with just three seniors on the roster.

Michigan Tech averages 2891 fans this year and has broken the single game attendance record several times. Coming into this season, MTU had only two crowds in the school's history that exceeded 3,000. As far as having the game televised, I'm not sure if it's possible. I have a copy of the MTU media guide and it states that the press box has just four booths in it-- two for the radio teams and two for the coaching staffs. Unless Pat Sweeney wants to do the play by play from the sidelines, it's not looking good.

I definitely agree with you in the sense that having a breakaway threat would add something to the running game. There have been several times the past couple of years where I've seen a run nearly be broken for a long gain and I can't help but think that might have been a touchdown with Riza Mahmoud in there. Having a guy like him that can turn a 10 or 20 yard gain into a 60 yard touchdown would really be nice.