UND92,96

I wouldn't say you weren't being objective, but it seems to me that the only person who can really, truly give UND's side of the story is Roger Thomas. Did he ever give reason for Taylor to think that a contract would be signed? I can't say, because I don't know. I do think it was rather foolish and short-sighted that the two schools ever stopped playing in men's and women's basketball, but the football issue is a complicated one.

The exact answer will of course depend on which school the answerer supports, but I believe the main reason, at least for football, was that at the time, games against non-division II competition (whether won or lost) not only didn't help, but actually hurt the playoff chances of the dII school due to a complicated "strength of schedule" index in use at the time. There were undoubtedly some other contributing factors, but the playoff issue for football was a big one.

I never get tired of watching that. I wonder if Rocky still wants to be buried at the 50 yard line at Dacotah Field?

I can't recall a more inexperienced and unproven offense coming into a season. We're heading into a game with a Big 12 power with: a starting quarterback with 242 career passing yards; a starting running back with 120 career rushing yards; starting receivers with 120 and 0 career receiving yards, respectively; a starting tight end with 0 career receiving yards; and four new starters on the offensive line.

I know it was working earlier, but it's apparently not now. Anyway, I'll try again: Game Notes

Game Notes

With still more than a month to sell until the first home game, there may be. I suspect it will depend in large part on the team's start.

Even if the basic premise of Kolpack's blog may be true, the manner in which it was written was overly negative IMO, e.g. "So the University of North Dakota is the latest to fall for the Grizzly scheduling ploy." I can only imagine the reaction on bisonville had NDSU been the one to sign this contract, and Wayne Nelson had written the identical thing about it. I've probably said this too many times already, but in the interest of full disclosure if somebody is going to write about whether UND should or should not expect Montana to make a return trip, why not at least mention that Montana's scheduling practices appear to be changing in the past couple of years? Not that Bison fans are at all interested in UND scheduling.

I see nothing wrong with speculating that a school may actually fulfill a contract, given the fact that they've done so in the past two years with other Great West teams. I think that's a more reasonable approach than that taken by Kolpack, et al., and simply assuming that since Montana bought out SDSU, etc. a few years ago, there's no way they'll ever travel here.

Again, it's not just the buyout that suggests there's a decent chance they'll play in Grand Forks in 2013--it's the fact that they played AT Cal Poly last year, and are playing AT UC-Davis this year. Obviously things can change between now and 2013, but based upon recent history, I believe chances are fairly good that both games will be played.

The Montana game is scheduled for November 13, 2010, and the return game is scheduled for September 14, 2013: link

Kolpack blog. He neglects to mention that Montana is also playing at UC Davis this year, further refuting the idea that they never travel for non-conference games.

9-4 @ Idaho 9-18 Northeastern St. 9-25 Northwestern St. 10-2 @ USD 10-9 Southern Utah 10-23 @ Cal Poly 10-30 Lamar 11-6 UC Davis TBD @ Montana

I wonder if perhaps this has changed a little in recent years? They did go to Cal Poly last year, and are going to UC Davis this year. I'd still be surprised if they show up in GF, but it may not be quite as out of the question as it was a few years ago.

Not that it makes Wayne's injury any less unfortunate, but he wasn't projected as a starter this year. He did start last year at the nose, but was moved to end in spring ball, where he was projected as a backup to Nick Nolte.

While I agree that getting a 30-year agreement is unlikely, if it did happen I believe you could count on one hand the number of schools that would refuse to play UND. How many schools are presently refusing to play Florida State or Utah? Any? We'll know in another two months the fate of the Fighting Sioux name. It would be a p.r. disaster to drop the nickname before the Standing Rock election.

Standing Rock council nixes nickname vote

I agree--he was a very nice man.

I had kind of forgotten that Kovash actually did play in the 1990's (1990 was his sr. year). He was a good quarterback, and certainly had a large hand in the turnaround of UND football after the disastrous mid-1980's. I believe he was a part of Roger Thomas's first recruiting class.

Valid point. Klancher was a very solid qb, as was Kory Wahl.

I guess I draw a distinction between those two situations. Manke was never pulled for poor performance to the best of my knowledge. Belmore was given the nod as the starter when Bowenkamp went down in 2004, and kept the job longer than he should have IMO. This was one of the only times I ever disagreed with a Dale Lennon decision during his tenure as head coach. Once Manke finally got his shot, injuries were the only things that ever kept him out of a game.

So who might be some players on the current roster who could be included on this list in a few years? I'll say Boyle, Hawkins and Saporu.

Completely off-topic, but what is the deal with columnists from places like Rochester and Sioux Falls seemingly always acting like the weather in Grand Forks is so radically different from weather in southern Minnesota/eastern South Dakota? The difference in average high temps in GF compared to Rochester in January is a whopping six degrees.

It's hard to say. My recollection of 2003 is a lot of very close games, and a lot of switching of quarterbacks between Bowenkamp and Joe Wilson--sometimes due to injuries, and sometimes due to ineffectiveness of one or the other.

Bowenkamp had better physical abilities, but I just really liked the intangibles that Manke brought to the table. When he was healthy, he was extremely effective. Bowenkamp wasn't as consistent IMO, and didn't move around in the pocket and avoid the rush as well as Manke did. I don't believe Bowenkamp could have lead the Sioux to a win at UNI.