Wow! That's all I can say after my first UND away-game experience ever. Everything, from the solo road trip down Old Hwy 85 through the Black Hills and eastern Wyoming to the hospitality of all I encountered in Wyoming to, of course, the big win in Laramie, was an experience I will never forget. The Pre-game experience: The Wyoming campus is beautiful, and I love the synergies that are built when you have all your sports facilities stacked on top of each other on campus. They, too, have a large IPF but nowhere near as big as ours. Just 100 yards of Turf under roof.... no track nor room for spectating. Pretty bare bones but effective for its purpose. I liked the fact that UW has a radio frequency you can tune into to get all the on-campus parking info that you need for game day and otherwise. UND could really use something like this. The tailgating was nutz and very friendly. When the cheer team marched by me and my buddies in our UND garb well before game time, every one of them acknowledged us with a friendly "Hello" a smile and a "Welcome to Wyoming!" More than once we were embraced by UW tailgaters who wanted to share their beverages with us and talk football. The common questions we were asked before the game was "Why does everyone say your defense is so good?" "You're not the ones that won all those championships, right?" And "Why does Notre Dame allow you to wear that logo?" We were very friendly and humble in our responses.... kind of giving them the ol' "Aw shucks, we're just happy to be here and have a chance to compete." Ran into some former North Dakotans now living in Wyoming -- who were obviously, big Bison fans. They were proud to get our attention and show off their UW Brown and Yellow colored T-shirts that read "Sioux Suck." Turns out one was from Dickinson, and I used to party with some of his older relatives when I was growing up there in the 80s. We took the ribbing good naturedly and parted with friendly handshakes. On the flipside there were hundreds of UW fans who had dual allegiances to the Cowboys and to UND. They showed up for the game with a mix of UW and UND clothing. That was nice to see. The beer wasn't too terribly overpriced -- we were able to get two Coors pounders each for 8 bucks. The game: There were about 200-300 UND fans in attendance throughout the stadium, mostly in the southwestern corner. They were loud and had plenty to cheer about, obviously. Most know I am partial to "Roughriders" as a new nickname for UND. I saw lots of ways that we could put our own stamp on the Roughrider name before, during and after games similar to how UW uses the Cowboys monikers and mascot. They had a colorfully adorned Cowboy (not the mascot), mounted on horse, ride into the stadium just before game time ala Florida State with their Seminole rider. The UW Cowboy carried a school flag and came to an abrupt halt on about the 20 yard line right in front of us, and threw the flag to a member of the cheer team, who speared it into the ground. That's just one example. The only lame thing that I saw/heard was that the UW team rushed the field to the cliche intro music "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC. What? Are we at an NDSU game? Can't say enough about John Santiago. After each head-turning rush, I would turn to my buddies and say "Do you realize, we have this guy for four more years? His move at the 5 yard line to deke the oncoming NT showed that he is years ahead of his playing age and he has the talent to pull it off. In their post-game comments, the UW radio guys referred to Santiago as UND's "Secret Weapon" that know one had any clue about coming into the game. Don't forget that, in all of his success, on Saturday, Santiago got loose around the edge on a 70-yard TD run that got called back on a penalty. Penatly or not, I think that run gave him confidence that he used the rest of the game. I thought Clive Georges showed flashes of what he can do. Seibel did what he had to do on punt returns, no mistakes, but I think we need more speed at that spot. I thought Keaton was a very good game manager. That QB keeper for at TD was executed to perfection. Meindel was very good in the punting game but our Special Teams coverage needs a little work. Taubenheim's FG miss was on the opposite side of the field... from our perspective it looked like it was good so it must not have missed by much. As impressive as the final score was .... I think we could have had at least 10 more points if it was not for the penalty that negated Santiago first long TD run and the fact that Taubenheim's FG miss followed a delay of game penalty on a try in which he put it through the uprights. From my viewpoint and if I recall correctly, the 92 yard TD pass for Wyoming, came at a point when UND's defense was running on all cylinders on a third and very long. UND pinned its ear back and brought all comers in a blitz package. The corners also initially got sucked in to this momentum just enough for their WR to get loose down field on a fly pattern. Coffman floated the ball right over the WR at about the 48 yrd line and he was gone. Coffman did get hurt on that series from the heavy pressures brought on by UND. It was one time when UW guessed correctly what our aggressive D was going to do. I am sure our coaches will shore this up in the future. Finally, I can't stress enough how nice the people of Cheyenne, Laramie and all of Wyoming were to all of us UND fans. I even got pulled over on my way home on Sunday by an HP, who let me off with a warning. It was so great to be part of UND football history in such a fun environment! Bring on Drake!
