NDSU grad

Can you give partial scholarships in DI basketball. I know you can't in DI football (well you can, but it counts as a full ride). If the Bison fund all basketball scholarships right away that would give us three extra (13 for DI vs. 10 for D2) plus all the scholarship money we're losing with the seniors. I imagine the only thing keeping us from having a really big recruiting class is the 5/8 rule.

I really didn't expect our schedule to be a who's who of DI-AA football next year. But keep in mind Northern Colorado didn't have any home games against I-AA competition last year, so I thought having Cal-Poly come here was fantastic (they're a pretty good program and trounced DI UTEP last year). I expect we'll have about 4 or 5 DII teams on the schedule next year, but hopefully that will be down to 0 or 1 by 2005.

JMO, but I don't think the group will be better than the 01 D. That was the best defense I've ever seen in DII, but we'll have to wait until they hit the field next year.

I think one of the main problems is their size. It's pretty easy for them to get bumped off a long route by a physical corner. And that's the main reason I don't liek the West Coast offense, it's not really designed for deep routes by the WR's.

I don't like the West Coast offense either, but I'm guessing Bohl will hire an OC that will run it to maintain continuity.

In my perfect world there would be no automatic bids, just use the BCS to pick the best eight. The only reason I included the automatic bids is I was trying to be somewhat realistic in reasoning that the BCS conferences would never agree to a scenario in which their conferences didnt' get an autobid.

There's six BCS conferences: Big East, Big 12, Big 10, SEC, Pac-10, and ACC. I like the idea though. Six conference champions, two at-large, and play it out. Get rid of the conference championship games, start the playoffs immediately after the regular season. The semifinals would be the following week, and the championship game would be around the 1st of the year. Keep all the meaningless bowls, and rotate the championship game among the 4 sites that now get BCS bowl games.

Believe it or not, Hager is a Minot State grad (I think he's in their hall of fame) but that is a good question regarding his desire to ever leave NDSU. He was always quoted as saying how he wanted to be a DI coach, but yet I never heard of him applying for any jobs during his early success at SU. I think he would have stayed at SU forever.

This could have a huge trickle down effect. Ever look at the ingredients on a bottle of pop. It usually says high fructose corn syrup. Why? Because it's a lot cheaper than sucrose (table sugar). If sugar becomes cheaper then the demand for corn byproducts goes down, which could lead to lower corn prices (although I'm probably being dramatic since most corn (~80%) gets fed to steers). Since you guys went to UND, those are those animals where we get steaks and hamburgers from .

We're right on your heels. So, are they still going to award the men's and women's races separately, or is this it?

As I understand it, it would end the sugarbeet industry in the Valley. The price for sugar would drop to about 1/3 of what it is now, meaning farmers might expect gross returns of $250 to $300/acre. I'm all for free markets, but in this global age everyone has to play by the same rules. Agriculture in the EU and other countries is heavily subsidized, plus they impose quotas and tariffs on imported American commodities, so I think we should stick it to them.

Won't that tunnel screen only work if the offense is in a spread formation? It seems to me that a defense could still use its zone blitz schemes if the offense was in a basic I or even 3 receiver formation.

I've heard you may be a getting another very good linebacker for next year. Rumor is Tyler Murrow is coming to UND after playing at NDSCS this past year.

From an outsider's perspective, you guys are definitely right. When you think of Sioux football you always think of their great defenses over the last 10 years, and I'm assuming Bubba has been there most of that time. I actually thought Mussman did a real nice job with the O this year, but in years past I thought his playcalling has been suspect. He is pretty young, so maybe he's just getting better. I'm too lazy to look right now, but if I'm not mistaken Mussman is an Iowa State alum. I'm surprised with the assistant coaching carousel going on there his name hasn't been brought up, but who know, maybe it will.

It's hard to make the argument that Oklahoma shouldn't be in just because they didn't win their conference when they're sitting at 8-1 in conference play and K-State ("the conference champions") are 7-2. Somebody on here said they need to take conference champions from the "Big Six" and two at large bids. I agree with that except with one caveat, get rid of the conference championship games. The SEC and Big XII should be able to make up the revenue lost from these when their representatives play in the playoff games (the SEC and Big XII should always have at least one team in the playoffs). They could use the current BCS system. This year the eight participants would have been OU, USC, LSU, Michigan, Ohio State, Texas, Miami, and Florida State. Or you could screw the autobids and just give spots to the top eight teams (this is what DII used to do).

I've heard that Kelly was very close to getting the Montana job last year. I can't remember the specifics, but I think it was almost a tossup between him and Hauck. Lennon seems like a class act and should be high on any AD's list looking for a new coach. It's certainly a testament to him and the program.

Actually I don't expect any DI-AA opponents at home next season. I also don't expect any DI basketball opponents at home next season. And come on, dumbest post ever. You couldn't have forgotten about siouxrock that quickly. At least my posts are coherent.

You're not right about Giacoletti (sp). Tom Billeter (current head coach at Augustana) was the coach who brought in alot of juco's. There were some people who were upset at his recruiting, but he had alot of success in the short time he was at NDSU. Coach G. actually brought in quite a few locals: Hedin from Minnesota, Tenbroek from ND, etc. I was never a huge Giacoletti fan, always alot of hype with few results. I'm excited about Miles, though; I think he's a good young coach and there is some potential for Bison men's basketball (current 0-5 record notwithstanding).

Does anyone south of Omaha care about college hockey?

Just some ramblings from a Bison fan. I think you can throw the size factor out the window. Everybody was talking about the enormous size differential between the Bison and Statesmen in 2000, and UNA's linebackers are enormous compared to Delta State's. I think one of Delta State's outside linebackers was 5'7" 165, and one of their inside backers was 5'9 190.

Didn't Hudspeth used to be at Delta State?

That was kind of odd. Maybe in their hearts they knew it would be their final game of the season and it was kind of their way of thanking him. At any rate, it seems that the players respect Bohl and the coaching staff, which I'm not sure was the case under the old regime.

Umm, I think that's what Bison1234 was trying to say, but I agree with you also. The inane SOS index that DII employs makes it downright stupid to play a DI-AA. I can complain about NDSU not making the playoffs, but we had our shot at blew it with losses to you guys and SCSU. Just think about Catawba, a loss to a top 5 DI-AA and a loss to the co-champ of the conference, and they're not in. And don't get me started about IUP; that's the biggest shaft job ever in the history of DII playoffs. At any rate, I don't see much benefit to either school in continuing the rivalry until the Sioux move to DI-AA.

Wow. I really don't like the Sioux, but this kind of sucks. No NCC school should ever lose to a DAC-10 school by that margin. Will Glas last the year?