UND92,96

Based upon 2008, it appears that the mediocre record is more of a problem than the unknown opponents. UND actually achieved its best per-game average attendance in the first year of the transition, playing the likes of Texas A & M-Kingsville, Wisconsin-LaCrosse, St. Cloud St., Western Washington and Southern Utah. SCSU was the only opponent that season with any meaningful history against UND. But the big difference was at that point, we as fans were used to winning 70% to 90% of our games year in and year out, and there was still a fair amount of excitement notwithstanding the poor home schedule. While 2008 and 2009 weren't disastrous record-wise, a handful of lop-sided losses and/or poor performances have seemingly harmed fan enthusiasm to the point of turning off a significant percentage of the casual fans.

I honestly don't believe that playing outside would have had any significant impact on attendance this past Saturday. It used to be that early season games drew well regardless of the opponent. Apparently that has now changed. The only explanation I've heard that may hold some merit is that the loss against Sioux Falls, and to a lesser extent the terrible performance in the home finale against Southern Oregon last year, destroyed interest of the non-hardcore fans. I believe interest will return, but it's probably going to take a big win or two against a quality opponent to undo the damage done last year. I'm not excusing the fan apathy by any means, as it baffles me what the thousands of people who wouldn't dream of missing an exhibition hockey game against Manitoba are doing on a home football Saturday, since they're clearly not at the games.

I would think they have enough to worry about with Western Illinois without wasting valuable time pontificating about UND-USD.

Warren does seem to be a pretty good runner, but with his relative lack of size it seems quite risky for USD to let him carry the ball very often. I don't think he'll last the season if he has many more games like yesterday in terms of number of carries. If Landry plays like he did yesterday, I like the Sioux in a high-scoring game.

Mason was vastly superior. At least Wacker won as a dII head coach. Brewster never warranted a head coaching job at this level IMO.

Has there ever been a worse head coach in the Big 10 than Tim Brewster? I can't think of anybody who compares to him in terms of ineptitude.

34 NIU 16 MN Maybe UND's competitive loss at NIU was more of an accomplishment than USD's win in Minneapolis?

The offense looked really good today. The defense needs to step up to have a decent chance of winning next week. Too many big plays allowed today.

It's interesting that McGill may get some time in the backfield today.

I tend to agree regarding USD relative to last year's team. I'm sure there's been some improvement by players such as Gainious (sp?) and Powell, but I have to assume that Warren was Shepard's backup for the past two seasons, and not the other way around, for a reason, and Shepard was 0-4 as a starter vs. UND. They did pick up a good defensive coordinator since last year, although it does not seem that there's been a noticeable improvement on that side of the ball as of yet.

Pretty good prediction!

Strangely ironic that we come out of back-to-back FBS games in almost perfect health, only to suffer a slew of injuries against a pretty weak dII team.

While they have rallied before after a poor start to a season, it sure looks at this point that even finishing above .500 is highly questionable. I fully expect an 0-4 start with their next two games being at Nebraska and UNI. Maybe SDSU is to FCS what Virginia Tech is to FBS this year in terms of failing to live up to expectations.

24 Illinois St. 14 SDSU final Tough start for the Jacks, who I believe have Nebraska coming up. Yikes. 12 Cal Poly 21 Texas St. final

A few thoughts: -I liked the new pre-game video montage. Nice job whomever put that together. -Hendrickson is a maniac on kick coverage, with at least four huge hits. He's also really come on strong as a linebacker. -Hardin is a stud. -Was it just me, or did lifting Miller's red-shirt based upon what appeared to be Sutton getting his bell rung seem a little strange? If Sutton is good to go for next week, then how does the decision look? -I like Mackey as a corner. I believe he got his second straight start opposite Hawkins. -I'd like to see Mersereau return punts instead of Murray. Murray is too valuable to risk injury, and Mersereau did a great job last year. -Zeb Miller has quite a leg on kickoffs--one of the best I've seen at UND.

Same score early in the 4th quarter. And these are the same Illini who hammered Dale Lennon's Salukis last week.

I agree. This may not be a politically correct opinion, but my feeling is that aside from Davis, who hasn't gotten a shot yet as a receiver, the juniors and seniors have been given ample opportunity to produce over the past 13 games, and for the most part haven't come through. That's not to say they can't contribute as blockers and as special teams players, but it's highly unlikely that they'll ever be legitimate playmakers at receiver. This isn't 2003 anymore, where we could simply plug in the next guy in line and he'd produce. We're now mostly playing against the kind of competition that requires a certain level of ability to succeed, and for the most part, the only ones on the roster with that kind of ability at the receiver positions are the young players. I'd like to see more of McGill, and maybe see what Heimler can do if he's healthy.

It was meant as a joke, i.e. any school with "Dakota" in its name wants to play Brewster and company.

Congrats to Greg Hardin on his record-setting performance: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/175357/group/homepage/

I think UND is in kind of a tough spot at quarterback until one of the two true freshmen is ready to take over in a year or two. Landry is obviously a senior, and has been very up-and-down. Goska is a junior and a talented runner, but unless UND goes to some sort of veer-type offense, he's probably not the full-time answer, either this year or next year IMO. Nichols played 9-man football, and is a good athlete, but may fall into a category similar to Goska, i.e. is he enough of a passer? Hendrickson is another talented athlete, but has had to switch to receiver, and seemed to be more of a runner (albeit a very good one) than passer in high school. No quarterbacks were brought in with the 2009 recruiting class. So that leaves Demler and/or Comes as the quarterback of the future. Hopefully at least one of them is ready to contribute as early as next year. Not to make excuses, but another thing to keep in mind is how few fourth and fifth year players there are right now who would have been considered very good NCC players (and these players were recruited before Mussman was even the head coach). I count maybe six or seven, and all but one or two are on the defensive side. I believe that's in large part due to the circumstances surrounding the recruiting class of 2006, insofar as UND hadn't made any formal decision regarding whether to stay dII or go dI. That uncertainty hurt recruiting. And as far as the class of 2007, it had no possibility of post-season (other than for the few who played as true freshmen), and there has been a very high attrition rate from that class. Throw in the class of 2008 and Lennon's departure in the middle of the recruiting season, and the handful of decommitments, and it becomes clearer why UND has such a young team right now.

New roster has been posted: http://www.fightingsioux.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=13500&SPID=6388&SPSID=58566

According to the NIU web site, there's no TV.

Fair points. But since Idaho did average 164 ypg rushing last year, has a huge (but largely inexperienced) offensive line, and may not necessarily want to show a lot of their playbook against an FCS opponent, I wouldn't be surprised if at least in the first half, they come out and try to impose their will with mostly a power rushing game. That's where I feel like UND should match up quite well. It will be interesting, that's for sure.

I'm not really into making specific predictions, but I think it will be a relatively low-scoring game. I'm not sure about our ability to score a lot of points because of the uncertainty at the receiver positions, and by extension the passing game. But I don't think we'll give up a huge amount of points, either. I expect a pretty close game.

Based upon the inconsistent defensive performance of the past three years or so, I can understand why several people are predicting that Idaho will score in the 30's. But with a renewed commitment to the 3-4, Mannausau now apparently calling the shots (and very familiar with the traditional UND 3-4), and pretty talented and experienced nucleus returning, I think the UND defense may surprise a lot of people this year. My hope and expectation is that the Sioux defense will be getting after the quarterback a lot more than what we've seen in recent years.