RD17

I don't like what SDSU is doing because it's too hard to build any momentum to start the season. If you schedule an FBS team plus two non-con games (one home and one away) against quality FCS teams, you are likely going to start the season 1-2 most years and be up against it going into conference play. You are also relegating yourself to just five home games every year, which makes it even more difficult to qualify for the postseason. Plus, scheduling all these home and homes with FCS schools is a bad idea unless you can get teams to come to your place first. Otherwise, you're just facing problems with buyouts like every one of the Dakota FCS schools have experienced over the past few years. NDSU definitely has the scheduling down: Buy two FCS non-conference wins and then schedule a winnable FBS game against a school in the region (ISU, UM, KU, Wyoming, etc.). Good for recruiting and fans to travel and perfect for making the playoffs. You don't see them scheduling Wisconsin or Nebraska like the SD schools are doing because they know the chances of getting smacked are pretty good and then the illusion of being big time is ruined. In both 2013 and 2014, UND has already "bought" wins against Valpo and Robert Morris, so clearly Faison understands what needs to be done to put the program in the best spot to reach the playoffs every year. SDSU is returning in 2013 which is a good game, but what happens after that is probably up to the UND fan base. If UND can double its season ticket sales and get to the point where 11-12K each week is a virtual guarantee, then I think you'll see UND go to buying a second guarantee game like our friends in Fargo. If attendance continues to lag, then you're going to see home and homes with FCS opponents and/or a D2 opponent on the schedule every year.

Yep, I think you are spot on in this assessment... the big boys don't share well with others and this is a way to make sure the lesser leagues don't infringe on the money. I think a secondary motive to this is that the college football "aristocracy" is tired of being exposed by these upstarts in the big BCS bowls. It's OK and even "cute" for an 11-1 Boise State to pound Arizona State in the Las Vegas Bowl. But Utah taking it to Bama in the Sugar Bowl or TCU beating Wisco in Pasadena or Boise State beating OU in Tempe... that stuff ain't cool.

I think we've been through this before, but many prominent FCS schools schedule D2 or lower opponents. Georgia Southern, Montana and Montana State are all still standing in the playoffs after scheduling a D2 game this year. Eastern Washington and Delaware played for the championship last year and both scheduled D2 teams. I think this is a case of people viewing this practice as unacceptable because of what the program 75 miles to the south is doing with its scheduling. The Portland State game became possible because of the $150K UND received from the Central Arkansas buyout. In affect it became UCA writing a check to PSU to come to GF in their place. If it costs $100K plus to bring in another FCS team to replace SD Mines on the schedule, it doesn't work out very well when only 8-9K are going to show up regardless of who the opponent is. Now that the transition is over, the UND fans need to step up and start buying season tickets and putting a consistent 11-12K in the Alerus Center each Saturday so that the administration has the confidence to go start buying more home games. UND averaged over 10,800 in the first year of the transition so I know it's possible. When you really think about it, it's pretty lame that a flagship state university with over 14K students has to be this concerned with keeping football attendance above 10K.

I agree with your point but what I'm trying to say is that I'm less concerned with pass yardage allowed and more concerned with pass efficiency defense. I'm not concerned about a QB throwing for 300 yards necessarily, as long as it takes 45+ attempts and some turnovers are created. The UNC game was the only one against an FCS team this year where the pass defense was a real failure. UNC also threw for 408 yards against Eastern Washington and was over 250 in each of their last five games so they figured something out towards the end of the year. No excuse for as bad as the UND secondary played that day, just saying that UNC was a lot better at the end than they were in September. Incredibly, Cal Poly was next to last in the entire FCS in pass defense, allowing 274 per game. This despite the fact that they have a clock-eating offense and one of the most highly regarded corners in all of the FCS. Yet they still won more than they lost and tied for the conference crown because they could stop the run. I agree that it's obviously best to be great against both the run and pass, but if you have to pick your poison I'd prefer a team try to beat me by throwing all day.

Agree, but with this caveat: UND's scheme is going to give up passing yards. When you have a defense that only allows 80 yards per game on the ground, it forces teams to abandon the run and go to the passing game. Plus the zone blitz out of the 3-4 is going to have seams in it to throw the football. I can live with an occasional 300-yard game by an opposing QB as long as the run game is limited to nothing and it take 45-50 attempts to get those passing yards. The SUU game is a good example of that strategy working. What UND has to get better at defensively is creating turnovers when the opponent is forced to pass all day. On those days when the opponent's run game is shut down and they are throwing all day like SUU did, UND should be getting interceptions and that rarely happened this year. The lack of turnovers is a bigger issue than yardage allowed, IMO.

Even if Bradley is again the best option at quarterback, I don't think there is any question the offense will be improved with so many players returning. The offensive line will be the best UND has had in several years and the receivers and backs should be better and more consistent as well. So, I think the key to the whole season will be the defense. Even if it's ugly, as shown this year you can win a lot of games with a defense and UND was very good this season. As I said before the big key will be getting the ILB's to play close to the level we saw this year. Finding or developing a lock-down corner would help as well.

With just five teams in the league, anyone not named to the first or second teams is considered an average to below average player. I'm really surprised Kleason wasn't named to the first team. I thought he was the best interior lineman I saw (from either team) in any of the UND games I watched this season.

As I said two months ago:

Problem is that the game is in Week 1. SD Mines would have no problem finding a D-II or NAIA school to play in the first two weeks of the season because that is when everyone is looking for non-conference games. They probably chose to play UND because they got a bigger guarantee than if they were to play a lower division school. I very much doubt that that they would still have a week one opening in March, however. If the schedule opening was in October or November... completely different story.

Defensively, Hendrickson is going to be tough to replace... he's the best ILB I have seen since I've been following UND football. I do like some of the young guys that saw playing time at ILB this year but finding someone else that can consistently play with the speed and intensity of Hendrickson is going to be tough. If a QB can step up, the offense should see a huge improvement next year with all the other talent returning.

I agree with the premise of what you're saying, although playing a D-II or lower school was a much bigger deal when there were just 16 playoff spots and a team essentially needed eight D-I wins. Still prominent FCS schools all over the country have in the past and continue to schedule lower division teams. There is a reason for that. I also pointed out that future schedules do not have the "SD Mines" issue. Things are looking up and I think the fact that Valpo and Robert Morris are on the schedules for 2013 and 2014 point out that Faison does have an understanding of this issue. The point The Sicatoka made (and I was trying to expand on) is that D-I football scheduling is not as easy as it appears. The non-scholarship/ low budget FCS schools don't exist simply to provide UND with an early season home game when we need one... they have their own interests as well obviously. Schedules are made years instead of months in advance like they were in D-II. Teams like Central Arkansas really don't want to travel up to ND because it's a long trip that provides no benefit for recruiting or alumni interests. That, and they know they'll probably get beat. I do know people in college athletics administration (not at UND, but elsewhere) and they will tell you that scheduling football games nowadays is a somewhat "dirty" business as evidenced by all the schools that sign home and homes and then back out after they get their home game. Schools that will play guarantee games will negotiate in what appears to be good faith with the intent to use that information to schedule someone nearby for a better deal. UND is at a great disadvantage in all of this because of location. So again, it's not as easy as "I don't care, just get it done."

Eastern Washington won the national championship last year and they played a D-II team. Delaware was their opponent in that game and Delaware plays D-II West Chester every year. Montana and Montana State both play a D-II team every year. Southern Illinois has played a D-II or NAIA team eight of the last ten years. Central Arkansas is going to make the playoffs this year and they played a D-II team. Scheduling a lower division opponent is something that is very common in FCS football, even among the most prominent programs.

There are no old D-II rivals to play. The NSIC is going to 11-game conference only scheduling. Grand Valley has 10 conference games and is already in a home and home contract for a non-conference game.

Yes. If people would pay more attention, we are doing the right thing as far as future schedules with Valparaiso scheduled in 2013 and Robert Morris in 2014. Scheduling SD Mines was probably a case of being unable to find a D-I team to pay a guarantee to come to GF next year. And obviously the only smart approach to scheduling non-conference home and homes with FCS teams is if they come to your place first.

UNA was going to submit its D-I application by 6/1/12 making next year the exploratory year. They need to notify the Gulf South by May of next year if they are withdrawing after the 2012-13 school year. So they need to have another conference invite lined up soon to still go D-I on their timeline. It will certainly be interesting to see which direction NKU goes. I would imagine they will have their pick between the Summit and ASun. As far as institutional fit, the Summit is better as NKU fits right in with all the other commuter schools. I wonder if Douple will have issues with NKU's nickname and mascot, however. It may be considered hostile and abusive to all of the northern plains Scandinavians that support the Dakota schools : http://www.nku.edu/about/mascot-tryouts.php

The more I think about it, NKU would be a very good pick up for the Summit. Like you noted, they are another eastern member to help balance out the league. They have a brand new arena, a solid overall athletic program and they are just across the river from Cincinnati. The Summit could do far worse.

The OVC has decided NOT to expand at this time: http://www.timesdaily.com/stories/OVC-decides-not-to-expland,184497 This probably keeps North Alabama in Division II for awhile as no other league really makes sense for them. Will NKU now turn its attention towards the Summit League?

There is really no way for the NCAA to put the hammer down, so I hope the fallout and "punishment" for what happened at Penn State comes in the form of recruits rejecting the school and the losses piling up over the next few years. It's what PSU deserves for the cover up of these disgusting crimes.

Atomic Football- a site that I have found (anecdotally) to be more reliable than Massey in predicting scores- has it 29-20 UND. The reason I don't think it will be a blowout is this: UND doesn't have the offensive prowess to blow out another team unless they can completely overpower that team with the run game (see BHSU and Montana Western). I think USF is good enough defensively to prevent that from happening. OTOH, USF probably doesn't have a good enough passing game to exploit UND's weakness which is why I think UND wins along the lines of 28-17. I know people probably look at the Northwest Missouri vs USF score in assuming UND will blow out USF, but Northwest Missouri is a much better team than UND this year.

The part I found really interesting is that BSU's president told the board that New Mexico State and La. Tech would leave the WAC for C-USA after the Big East gets done poaching C-USA schools. Utah State and San Jose State will almost certainly receive MWC invites due to the Big East movement meaning that only one of the eight current teams in the WAC (Idaho) would still be there in a couple of years.

There have been three verbals already. There should be more coming in with increasing frequency from now through the first of the year, with January being the big month.

This is really surprising because NSU had its worst year in a long, long time last season. I think Arizona also lost to a D-II school the other night.

Winona State did beat the Gophers a few years ago in an exhibition game but I believe that was one of the years that WSU won the D-II national championship.

Not to rain on the parade, but this will not be the 30 or 40 point pasting everyone seems to be calling for. UND should win this time but it will be in the 10-14 point range, not a complete blowout. I've said it several times over the last two years, but I'm going to say it again: scheduling USF at all was a just plain stupid move.

I think the recruiting emphasis on defense this year will be at the safety position (an area of GREAT need with current level of play and the fact that 3 will be lost to graduation). Also getting a bit thin in numbers at ILB. DL is also an area where the coaches will always look for more depth. Offense is in better shape graduation-wise, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the coaches go after another JUCO or transfer QB to compete with Bradley and bridge the gap to Mollberg.