RD17

This might sound silly at first but just bear with me. I actually think that having a great running back can sometimes hurt a team. Teams can rely too heavily on the back to carry the team offensively, and when they run into a team that can take him out of the game, there is no where to turn. I think what tends to happen is that teams predicate their entire offensive scheme on being able to run the ball. As soon as a defense takes away the run, the quarterback bootleg and play action passing become ineffective and there is nowhere to turn. I can think of several good examples of this, but perhaps the best is Brian Masek from UNO. He can be extremely effective running the ball and throwing off of play action. But take away the running game and turn him into a dropback passer, and he's not going to beat you. Masek was something like 13-30 with two interceptions on Saturday against Mankato. I think the same could be said for USD's offense this year, NDSU with Lamar Gordon, SDSU with Josh Ranek, and UND with Phillip Moore. Most of the time those teams could win by simply handing the ball off all day. But force them to throw the ball, and you had them beat. This is why I like UND's offensive scheme so much. The balance is tough to defend and by being at least adequate at so many different things, you give a defense plenty to prepare for.

I wonder what the policy is for playoff games when it comes to providing tickets for the visiting team? There must be some set number of tickets that must be set aside for the visitors. It would be nice if 500 of the 4000 fans on Saturday were from UND .

24- which is about 1 out of every 6 Division II teams. For many years it was a 16 team playoff. This is the first year of the 24 team format.

I really think the offensive struggles are mostly to do with the quarterback position. You just can't start three different guys in one season and expect to have much offensive continuity, especially when you run a pro style/west coast offense. IMO, the offensive line has been solid all year and although the skill position talent isn't overwhelming, it is adequate. When you really analyze the situation, this is the 2nd time in three years that UND has lost an outstanding senior quarterback to essentially a season ending injury. When you look at 2002 and all of the close losses in conference play, having Klosterman would probably have meant some more wins and I don't think we'd be having this discussion right now if Bowenkamp would have been healthy this season. In UND's offense, having an experienced quarterback is huge. Just look at the improvement both Klosterman and Bowenkamp made in their second season starting. I think the offensive scheme is good and is tough to defend when everything is in place. But sometimes you need a little luck and the injury bug has definitely bitten UND at the quarterback position recently. On the bright side, maybe we can look back a year from now and talk about how valuable the game experience was to Belmore and Manke in having a good offense in 2005.

One other important game is SVSU @ Ferris State. If SVSU wins, their winning percentage would be back at .700, giving GVSU an additional .2 in SSI.

A school does not have to win its conference to receive the earned access bid. The only time earned access comes into play is if a conference's highest seeded team in the final regional poll is seeded 7th through 10th. Like I said, it doesn't matter where that team finished in its conference, the regional seeding is all that matters. If you read my column this week, I've got Winona and Northwood as the only two teams I feel have a playoff spot locked up. Even if Winona lost its last two games it would not fall out of the top 10, and no one else in the NSIC has a shot at finishing higher than Winona in the regional poll. Northwood has such a high SSI that they could afford another loss and still get in. Both of Northwood's final two games are very winnable, so it shouldn't be a problem for them to win one game. These 6 teams are essentially fighting for the other 4 spots: UND UNO SCSU GVSU SVSU Michigan Tech There is so much that could happen with so many of these teams still playing each other that it's very difficult to predict what might happen. I still think UND has a good shot at getting in to the playoffs with 2 losses, but it would depend a lot on how UND opponents like Delta State and Central Washington do the rest of the way.

UNO's offensive line is not as good as last year, but Day is a better running back than Kammrad was. The two probably offset each other. I definitely think UND can keep him under control and force Masek to throw the ball. Whether or not the Sioux offense can put enough points on the board is a whole different matter. The big thing for UNO is that they got Chris Denney back last week coming off of a hamstring injury he suffered in the season opener. They were really hurting in the passing department without him because he is a big time receiver. I think he had a couple of long catches that led to scores against SCSU and his presence makes the UNO offense much better. Here's something interesting to ponder: What if the UNO and SCSU games had been switched around on UND's schedule? SCSU was peaking when they played the Sioux and are now absolutely decimated by injuries. UNO was a very average team the first month of the season, but now they are playing some very good football. If UND had played those two teams in a different order, they win both games by 10+ points. Just goes to show how much things can change over the course of a season.

I pretty much came to the same conclusion. The biggest thing that sticks out to me though- Manke committed four turnovers. That is obviously unacceptable, especially with how good the defense is. If UND can just hold on to the ball on offense and not put the defense in bad situations, the Sioux are in great shape to win every game. Now here's what really worries me about the UNO game: UNO's linebackers are very athletic and outstanding at playing zone coverage and jumping on pass routes. In fact, one of their linebackers has returned three or four interceptions for touchdowns this year. With the way Belmore and Manke have made some terrible reads in the short passing game, that could spell big trouble. What I really hope to see out of the Sioux offense (especially if Bowenkamp can't go) is to stick with the running game as much as possible (45+ carries) and when they do pass, use play action and throw deep. UNO can be worn down if the running game keeps pounding on them.

I ran through a few different scenarios last night and I think that if UND wins out, they probably get the 3rd seed. If the Sioux lose to UNO, I still think it's likely that UND gets in as probably a 6 seed (provided that they beat USD). Other things to watch that could help the Sioux: -Delta State needs to keep winning. They got back to .500 last week and *should* win their last two games. -Saginaw Valley and Grand Valley both have to play Michigan Tech and SV has to play at Ferris State. I think the chances of both of the Valleys winning out are pretty slim. -Central Washington beating Western Washington on Saturday. A CWU win assures them of finishing .500 or better (which helps the Sioux) and a WWU loss assures them of finishing below .700 (which hurts both UNO and SCSU).

After thinking more about it, I actually think it's better for UND if Bowenkamp doesn't play at all this week because UNO won't have any idea about which QB they need to prepare for. The UNO coaches have to be aware of the nature of Bowenkamp's injury, so if he does play some QB against Mankato, it would signal that he would almost certainly be starting the following week. It's tough to gameplan on defense when you don't know which of the three quarterback's weaknesses you need to exploit.

I don't have any inside information, I'm just purely speculating. I would be completely comfortable with Bowenkamp starting at UNO, even if he went into the game cold. He has a tremendous grasp of the offense and would by far give UND the best chance to win down there. Nothing against Belmore or Manke, it's just that Bowenkamp has been in almost every conceivable situation before and at this point in his career, I don't think it will take much to shake off the rust.

Lennon said tonight on the radio that Manke will be starting on Saturday because Belmore is banged up a little bit (but available if necessary). He also said that Bowenkamp took some reps in practice this week and might possibly play, so that is definitely encouraging. My gut feeling is that they will keep Bowenkamp under wraps this week and hopefully have him ready to go at Omaha next week.

I would be interested in seeing what kind of results you get with the ratings systems.

I disagree about Dressler. When you have a guy like him that is a threat to score from anywhere on the field, you have to get him the ball no matter if he is a true freshman or a 5th year senior. On that one post pattern that he ran (just before the half, if I remember correctly) it was an easy TD if Belmore throws a decent pass.

Jim, How would the RPI work when you have a conference like the GLIAC that basically plays no games outside the conference? Wouldn't the sample size be too small to get an accurate picture? My thought is that a computer system works well in most of the other sports, but with so many conferences in D2 football playing basically insular schedules, you wouldn't have enough of a cross section of games to make a good comparison. I'm asking because I have no clue how the RPI is computed.

I think it's interesting that although the numbers are close, Grand Valley is given the benefit of the doubt over Winona in this week's regional poll, despite having a lower SSI. I would expect that UND will get the same benefit of the doubt if it comes down to a comparison with Winona. And yeah, it is a joke that beating a 9-2 team from the NCC or GLIAC carries the same weight as beating one from the NSIC. Neither Bemidji or Concordia-St. Paul would finish close to .500 in the NCC. I have my ideas on what would make the playoff system much better and I plan on running them by some of the decision makers on the national committee after the season and seeing if it goes anywhere.

I actually am worried. I spent a little time running through all of the different scenarios and I think the chances are very good that UND could finish 9-1 and finish no higher than 3rd or 4th in the region. In fact, I think the chances are slim that the Sioux get a 1 or 2 seed. This whole system is so convoluted that it's highly likely that Grand Valley smokes Northwood on Saturday (making it two straight blowout losses for Northwood) and they still would be ranked higher in the region than UND in next week's region poll. Here's some things that need to happen for UND: Central Washington needs to keep winning to get over .500 (they are 4-4 right now) and most importantly, they need to beat Western Washington when they play again in a couple of weeks. This would prevent WWU from finishing .700 and take points away from both SCSU and UNO since they both played them. UNO needs to beat St. Cloud, then UND beat UNO the following weak. If SCSU doesn't pick up a 2nd loss, it would be next to impossible for UND to jump them in the regional poll. Delta State needs to win the rest of their games to finish over .500. They lost again last week and are now just 3-4. Ferris State needs to win 2 of its last 3 games to finish over .700. The chances of that happening are very slim as each of Ferris' final three opponents will be favored over them. So at this point my guess is that if UND wins out they will most likely get the 3rd or 4th seed. If they lose one of the last three games, the Sioux should still get into the playoffs and be seeded somewhere between 4 and 6.

I think CWU has a very good shot at finishing over .500- they really only have one tough game left on their schedule, and even if they lose it, they finish 6-5. Ferris is 5-2, but 3 of their 4 remaining games are against VERY tough teams. It will take a much better effort than they showed last week for them to finish 8-3 or better and stay above the magical .700 mark. The other thing that's hurting UND's SSI that I expect will get better is Delta State. DSU is 3-3 having lost the last two weeks to very good teams on essentially the final play of the game. The rest of their games are very winnable though, so I think the chances are good that they run the table and finish 7-3. That would obviously be a big boost to UND if DSU finishes with a .700 record.

Jim-that really looks good! Why doesn't the NCAA just hire you to figure out all of this stuff? It would make understanding all of this much easier for everyone.

I'm always hesitant to pick scores (even though I have to do so for a few games each week in my column ), but I really think that this is a very, very bad matchup for Duluth. The Bulldogs do have a decent running game- but we all know that decent isn't good enough against the Sioux defense this year. Once the UND defense makes the UMD running game a non-factor, the Bulldogs will obviously be forced to pass, and they do that very poorly. Here's their passing stats on the year: PASSING GP Effic Att-Cmp-Int Pct Yds TD Lng Avg/G --------------------------------------------------------------- Opahle, K. 6 77.34 110-44-6 40.0 514 3 40 85.7 Pelzer,T. 3 56.93 56-20-6 35.7 245 1 37 81.7 Anderson, E. 3 155.00 2-1-0 50.0 25 0 20 8.3 Flury, V. 7 0.00 1-0-0 0.0 0 0 0 0.0 Marks, C. 2 0.00 1-0-0 0.0 0 0 0 0.0 Total.......... 7 70.62 170-65-12 38.2 784 4 40 112.0 Completing 38% of your passes and throwing four TD passes against 12 interceptions is awful and will not get it done against UND's defense. To top it off, UMD is banged up a bit on defense. The guy who is by far the Bulldogs' top defensive player, lineman Russ Rabe, is most likely out with an injury. Like I said, I don't like to pick scores, but I think the only thing that will prevent this game from getting really ugly is Dale Lennon not wanting to embarrass an old friend.

I sincerely hope for the Bulldogs' sake this isn't true. Ferris is graduating most of its defense and UND will have an even better team next year (maybe the best in school history). That could really be an ugly game.

This is just for you, Bulldog. I know you're on self imposed probation from the D2 board, so I'll post what I wrote on the game here also so that you can read it: I knew the FSU-UND game was over after Ferris' first possession. Why? Because you're not going to line up in the I formation all game long against UND's defense and run the ball well enough to stay in the game. I think the last time that strategy worked against the Sioux was 1989. Ferris isn't a bad team, but I can now see why they are never competitive with the other teams with great defenses like Grand Valley. I was actually fairly impressed with the Bulldog defense. They had pretty good speed overall and Kevin Myers is one heck of a linebacker. But the offense and special teams continually put them in bad positions and they spent most of the game on the field. It still remains to be seen how the Bulldogs compare to most of the other top teams in the GLIAC, but as a point of reference- I think FSU would be a .500 or slightly below team this year in the NCC.

I think you're exactly right. Last year, there were two experienced quarterbacks that were confident players and knew their roles on the team- I think that makes it much easier to pull the trigger and make a switch if one of them is struggling. You don't have to worry near as much about shaking someone's confidence when they are 5th year players in the program. I think the situation now is that Lennon decided to go with Belmore (for whatever reason, but I trust the coaches since they see them play every day ) and try to develop him knowing that there might be some growing pains. The way they're probably looking at it is- if we bench Belmore, his confidence will be shaken and there is no guarantee that Manke can do a better job at this point. If they stick with Belmore and just let him play through some mistakes, he will improve and the team will be better off in the long run than if they started going back and forth with Belmore and Manke. I also think Lennon is deflecting criticism because he is not only the head coach, but also the QB coach and needs to show confidence in his players. I don't think anyone is beyond criticism, but obviously Lennon has shown that he is a good evaluator of talent and he is the one studying game films and stuff and seeing the mistakes that Belmore is making. I know I said earlier that I wasn't that impressed with Belmore, but if Lennon thinks having Belmore at QB is best for the team, I'm not going to argue with him.