UND92,96

I completely respect your opinion, and agree that no judgments should be made until the end of the season. But I can't blame anybody for being critical, and I'm not sure any posts have really been over the line all things considered. It was pretty tame compared to what would have happened had the hockey team gotten swept by a dIII team. This is likely the most humiliating loss by a UND team in any sport, ever. I am far more bothered by this than the string of losses to DAC teams by the men's basketball team in the mid-2000's. I think the offense gets a pass this year due to youth and unexpected personnel losses at running back the past two years. Plus, Mussman knows offense. But the defense? Barring a miracle turnaround the last five games, that's an area which must be addressed after the season. Enough is enough.

Dale Lennon hasn't lost his touch--SIU won at Northern Iowa today.

And on the other hand, NDSU's classes immediately after a couple of 10-1 seasons weren't overly good. You just never know. I'm not really as worried about recruiting as much as X's and O's right now.

I'm pretty sure we'll beat S. Oregon. But I've resigned myself that 4-7 is the best we can do. Hopefully we can just avoid being embarrassed in the remaining FCS games.

At least that will mean NDSU can't recruit, either.

One other thing I forgot to mention about Mussman--he was a good offensive coordinator, and a good o-line coach. That's why I'm not as concerned about these areas as I am about the defense. Both areas need to be improved, but I have faith that he will make sure it happens.

I think Mussman did a good job salvaging what could have been a disastrous 2008 class (given Lennon's late departure), and by most accounts the class of 2009 is looking good. Mussman can recruit. But I think the defense is broken right now--completely broken--and it wouldn't surprise me if Faison makes some decisions for Mussman that may be quite difficult to make if they were completely up to Mussman.

There's plenty of blame to go around for the state of the program. For example, although there's probably not a bigger Dale Lennon fan than me, let's remember he was in charge for the recruiting classes of 2005, 2006 and 2007 (all sub-par), and he made the decision on the replacement(s) for Tim Tibesar. The defense has gotten progressively worse every year since about 2005. The numbers don't lie.

I lived through something like this once before as a UND football fan, in the mid-1980's. The difference was, I was just a kid back then and it didn't bother me anywhere near as much that we were horrible.

What a trainwreck. And there are still five games to go.

For whatever it's worth, UND had three rivals 2-star recruits last year--Binns, Finley and Goodman. Demler is also a 2-star prospect.

Here's an article from Marlin Lee on Demler's commitment. It will be interesting to follow the career of Demler compared to NDSU recruit Esley Thorton from Bismarck. Thorton may very well turn out to be a good college quarterback, but he's asked to throw so seldom right now that it has to be pretty hard to project how he'll do playing in an offense where he'll need to throw at least 25 times a game. Demler already plays in that type of offense, which has to be somewhat of an advantage in terms of his transition to the college game.

Marlin Lee has Demler as the second-rated qb in Wisconsin, and the 22nd-rated prospect overall. He's thrown for nearly 1800 yards and 17 td's through seven games so far this year. A very nice pickup for UND.

It could very well be that there are multiple correct answers, but I was thinking of the Val Kilmer line from the movie 'Real Genius'--an underrated 80's classic.

The roster has been updated to add some walk-on's and/or transfers.

No kidding. Between Chapmangate and the soon-to-be 1-6 football team, it's not exactly a great time to be an NDSU fan/alum. But it's a great time to be VMeister!

I don't think many people are taking USF lightly. I'm just curious about what, if anything can be taken from the fact that former perennial NCC football doormat Morningside has competed quite well with Sioux Falls the past few years. Is Morningside better now than when they were dII, or might that suggest that the top of NAIA would not fare very well against a good dII team/decent FCS team?

There will be a one-hour live webcast discussion on the game at 1 p.m. today here: http://www.argusleader.com/article/9999999...emplate=mogulus

I don't know much about the other Great West programs, but USD should be pretty good since their best player (Hegge) sat out last year with an injury and is now back. I think they also got a pretty good transfer from Iowa State, although presumably she has to sit out a year. UND should be more balanced in scoring than we've seen in a long time, since for so many years it seemed like one or two players--Kimbrough, Langen, Boese, Leighton, etc.--would be the leading scorers by far. This year, there should be several players at or very near double figures, and I don't really see anybody averaging more than about 12 ppg.

Is Morningside better now than they were as an NCC program? Where do you think Sioux Falls would finish if they were in the Northern Sun this year?

I like what we have going in terms of young d-linemen, and this year's red-shirting LB's look very good on paper. There will be a lot of pressure on them to play early considering we have no scholarship LB's remaining from the recruiting class of 2008, and few from 2007.

In addition to Bamba, Hawkins and Schwenzfeier, I'd say a healthy Boyle and perhaps Bondy would have started on most of the good UND teams of the past 8-10 years. While I agree that the overall talent level right now is nowhere near where it needs to be, I'm frustrated at the seeming lack of progress being made by the defense over the past four or five years. I had really thought we'd see some improvement this year given all the experience coming back, but besides getting more turnovers, there hasn't been any real improvement as far as I can see. We're actually giving up more rushing yards this year against FCS opponents than we were last year though four FCS games, and as mentioned by several people the pass rush is absolutely non-existent this year.

When you look at the statistics, it's kind of amazing that UND is 3-2. The defense is giving up more than 300 yards per game passing, and over 160 yards per game rushing. I can understand struggling in one area or the other, but not both. It seems that the saving grace right now is turnover margin (UND is +6), and defensive/special teams scoring (3 td's and 2 safeties).

Not a good combination for a defense. Plus, it seems that some of our db's have questionable ball skills.