UND92,96

I really wanted to believe that we'd see a marked improvement for the defense this year, because on paper the talent level seems to be pretty good. But the reality is that although there have been some stretches of good play, I don't believe the defense is an area of strength right now, and as you mentioned it hasn't been for three or four years.

Bamba scored five touchdowns all of last year. Hardin has six through four games, and is well on his way to far exceeding Bamba's receiving yardage total from last season. Not that it wouldn't be nice to have somebody to take some of the pressure off Hardin like Bamba would have, but yes, Hardin has essentially made people forget Bamba.

I think I'd be a little more of a believer in the USD defense had they not given up so many more rushing yards against NDSU than the Bison had managed against anybody else this year. If the Sioux can avoid turnovers, I think there's enough firepower to do some serious damage tomorrow. Murray has done it before in Vermillion, and Hardin has been unbelievable so far.

I really hope I'm wrong, but with each passing week I'm afraid this may turn out to be a season-ending situation, similar to Genoway last year...

You have to admit, although Morrell will probably get the USD defense to a higher level in the coming years, they haven't looked very good so far. USD doesn't stop the run well, and Hardin's presence makes putting eight in the box risky. UND may lose, but I see a lot of points being scored on both sides.

From today's weekly chat at the Sioux Falls Argus Leader web site with USD beat writer Mick Garry: In reality, according to the OPE numbers for the fiscal year ending June 2009 (the most recent numbers available), the schools rank as follows, by revenue produced: 1. UND $15,055,027 2. NDSU $13,039,179 3. SDSU $10,708,255 4. USD $7,162,809

Of course, we could simply scrap the comparative score analysis altogether, and instead rely on the "UND-has-a-hex-on-Meierkort-just-like-Behrns-had-a-hex-on-UND" theory as the primary basis for predicting a UND win.

Game preview from Sioux Football Insider: http://siouxfb.areavoices.com/ Based upon what Murray did two years ago against the Yotes, and what McNorton did last week, not to mention Sutton's huge game against USD last year, I'm expecting a big performance from Murray on Saturday.

I don't have any specific memory of the crowd that day, but I do recall an extremely slippery turf which greatly hindered play, and a dropped pass very late in the game...

Not sure. According to the UND game notes at fightingsioux.com, the game will be available on channel 27 "in most North and South Dakota markets."

Another major donor was Ken Hyslop, who gave $6 million in the early 1980's.

Regional TV only on Midcontinent sports channel.

Here's the info on the Betty: http://www.fightingsioux.com/ViewArticle.dbml?&&DB_OEM_ID=13500&ATCLID=736161 It is small, but of course UND has the option to play games at the Ralph if demand for tickets far exceeds supply. Unfortunately, that hasn't been an issue too often lately.

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.