UND92,96

Nice pick!

I agree. Also, with all the young talent UND has right now, it may be a few weeks into the season before we start seeing what some of these kids are really capable of. For example, I recall the first game of the 2006 season when UND opened the season at Central Washington, a red-shirt freshman running back named Ryan Chappell was fourth on the depth chart. A week later, he rushed for 121 yards and two td's against UNI.

Does anybody know for certain whether Murray is enrolled at UND this semester? Even if he is, I would be surprised if we ever see him play again. However, with Sutton, Magstadt and after this season Binns, there is some good young talent at running back. Even though he's not starting, from everything I've heard Sutton is the back who has made the most big plays in practice.

It certainly doesn't hurt that there's already something of a relationship having been established between the two athletic departments, with the women's basketball team playing in the tournament there last year, and the men's team playing in Ames last year and this year (thanks to Mac no doubt). Besides Minnesota and Wisconsin, this is probably the regional FBS opponent that makes the most sense for UND to eventually play in football.

Oh, I guess I didn't realize that wasn't common knowledge. I kind of expect UND will eventually play Iowa State in large part because of that connection.

I have to ask, what comments of Mussman were being discussed? Please don't make me go to Bisonville...

It will be very interesting to compare the seasons Mertens and Landry have this year, particularly considering both are local products, and the fact that there was some disappointment expressed on this board when UND didn't sign Mertens. I don't think there's much question that Landry is the more physically gifted of the two, but hopefully he won't have the same problems Mertens has seemed to have in terms of mental mistakes and/or turnovers.

St. Cloud lost 38-16 at Augie last week. I didn't expect this one to be this close.

13 Maine 10 SCSU at the half 7 Iowa St. 0 NDSU

Some interesting games tonight, including NDSU @ Iowa St. and St. Cloud St. @#19 Maine. St. Cloud is up 10-7 in the 2nd quarter.

I thought it would be interesting to resurrect this thread, because I believe it helps explain why the offense is probably not as strong as we'd like to see in terms of talent and/or experience. By my quick count, we've had the following early departures from the past five recruiting classes (counting only those who signed letters of intent and therefore presumably were receiving some scholarship money): 2009: 2 2008: 3 2007:11 2006: 7 2005:11 I think these departures are felt most prominently on the offensive line, receiver, running back and to some extent linebacker. It's hard to consider the classes of 2005 and 2007 as anything other than a disaster in terms of retention rates.

link This has to be the most players ever on a UND basketball roster. I wonder how many freshmen will red-shirt? I'm guessing we may see Smart and either Houdek or Kuehl play this year, but that's strictly a guess.

Realistically speaking, staying dII was not an option because of a number of factors, including the successful transition of NDSU and SDSU, the inability to find additional members for the NCC, and the general direction of dII with all the former NAIA schools moving up and many of the former dII powers moving to dI. Football probably would have been O.K. for a little while longer at the dII level, but recruiting was going to be extremely difficult with 36 scholarships, considering all the competition within our traditional recruiting area. I think the quality of the product we see on the football field would have gone steadily down, which would have impacted attendance and interest in the program. We are very possibly going to take our lumps this year (particularly this Saturday), and maybe next year, but within a few years I'm confident that UND will be a strong FCS program.

I'd like to think that UND's talent on defense this year is better than it's been in several years. Texas Tech had a better offense last year, at least on paper, and scored 56 and 49 points, respectively, against UMass and Eastern Washington. So in theory, UND could hold TT under 50 with a good defensive performance. The problem is, I'm assuming those teams had better offenses than what we'll likely have this year, so I'm concerned with the defense getting worn down by the heat and lot of 3-and-out's by our offense. 49 Texas Tech 3 UND

I like it! I had forgotten just how cheesy Rocky sounded in that NFL Films segment.

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.