UND92,96

Herald article.

I was really young at the time, but I still remember the 1981-82 Sioux team featuring Dan Clausen, Steve Brekke and Aaron Harris. That was a great team. It's pretty ironic that both Brekke and Clausen have sons who are a part of the same UND recruiting class!

Stephen F. Austin is apparently improved over recent years, but they haven't had a winning record since 2004, and they average around 8700 per game. I'm going to reserve judgment until we know for certain this isn't a home-and-home, but I'd certainly like to think we shouldn't have to resort to this type of scheduling. During our entire run as a dII power from 1993 to 2007, I don't believe we EVER agreed to a road-only contract against a program in our own division (in other words, Northern Iowa was the sole road-only contract to my knowledge).

I can't disagree with any of this, although of course the difference between this year's situation and all of the others is that in those cases, teams weren't substituting four of their toughest conference games for games against UMC, Northern St., SW MN St. and MSU Moorhead. Even if it's true that UMD is good enough this year to have won an intact NCC (circa 2006 and 2007 anyway), unless they have a good showing in the playoffs there will be a healthy dose of skepticism in some circles that their improvement wasn't in large part a function of a much softer schedule. Whether that's fair or not, I don't know. BTW, do you know whether UND ever recruited the Winfield kid?

If true, I'm quite disappointed that we'd accept a one-game, road-only contract with an FCS team. I could understand doing it for this season, but now that we'll be a counter, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I'm not too disappointed in the result of this game. Montana State is supposed to be pretty good (picked third in the Big Sky), and obviously playing a Friday night game followed by a long bus trip for another game less than 48 hours later isn't easy. I think the Sioux are going to win a lot of games vs. dI opponents this year.

Herald article on some of the freshmen who may make an impact next year.

With USD beating SUU, I guess we're now the only Great West team without a conference win this year.

I have to respect Bob's opinion, as he follows dII football a lot closer than probably any of us. But if UMD is really that good this year after going 4-6 last year and not looking very good at all IMO, Nielson must be some kind of miracle worker. In any event, you almost have to think this year may be something of a mirage, similar to how Winona State had some really good teams in the early 2000's, because presumably the effect of the scholarship cut necessitated by re-joining the NSIC is going to begin to be felt in the coming years.

If last night's game was any indication, it looks like only eight players will regularly see playing time: Harkins, Joseph, Porter, Harrison, Mertens, Bledsoe, Mitchell and Benter. According to the boxscore, nobody else played last night. I'm amazed that we were able to win without Mertens scoring in double figures.

I've been somewhat critical of recruiting in the years since Kimbrough was brought in, but I do like this year's signings. MN alone produces a lot of dI-caliber girls basketball players, and we just need to do a better job of recruiting other parts of the state besides only the NW part. SDSU has provided the blueprint. There's no reason UND can't do something similar.

I was very pleased with tonight's performance. I believe Kimbrough, Youngblut, Guinn, Bagaason and Ledger were all in double figures. It was nice to see that the Sioux could win without a monster performance by Kimbrough.

The strange thing is that this has gone on the past few years, under multiple a.d.'s/interim a.d.'s, and two different SID's. I just don't understand why it should be like pulling teeth for the athletic department to issue press releases promptly upon receiving signed letters of intent (for sports other than football, for which this has never been a problem). EDIT: I see a press release for a baseball signee was just posted, so perhaps releases for other sports are forthcoming. But I still don't understand the delay for men's basketball when both verbal commitments signed their LOI's yesterday. I strongly suspect it's a similar story on the women's side, as it's doubtful that any of the four expected signings didn't take place yesterday.

Here's confirmation of the Josh Schuler signing. I also know that Brandon Brekke signed yesterday because Jones said as much on the coaches' show last night. So why can't we get this info from the Herald or fightingsioux.com? Nearly every other dI or dII school in the area announced their signings yesterday.

I'm listening to the coaches' show right now, and Jones mentioned that this year's freshman class is even better than he expected. He loves Mertens' relentlessness and knack for scoring, and Mitchell may be the team's top athlete and isn't afraid to shoot. Regarding today's signees, he loves the upside of Brandon Brekke, and he said the kid out of Ohio is a great shooter with an extremely long wingspan.

Even with the disappointing crowd for the SUU game, UND has set a new single season attendance mark of 10,167 per game. And that was despite a pretty unattractive home schedule, and a down year in terms of won-loss record. The previous record was set in 2001.

Reading the Game Notes, I couldn't help but notice that Lehnertz wasn't even listed among the primary reserves (listed just under the projected starters). Is he injured, or have other players such as Mathison simply played their way ahead of him in practice?

It should be pointed out that SUU has beaten Texas State on the road this year, also. Not a GWC game, but an impressive road win nonetheless considering Texas State is presently tied for second place in the Southland Conference.

Game Notes UND's projected starting lineup is Joseph, Harkins, Porter, Harrison and Mertens. To call this a small lineup would be an understatement. I'm very surprised Bledsoe isn't starting.

I think there may be some NDSU fans who would disagree. Freund has been a good quarterback for us the past two years. But over the past three games (obviously all losses), his touchdown to interception ratio is just 1:1, and he's been sacked 15 times. Those are the kinds of numbers I'd expect from a young quarterback, not a senior. He's holding the ball too long in many cases, and he's trying to make some things happen that aren't there, resulting in very costly int's. I'd just really like to see whether Landry has progressed from a year ago. I thought he showed some positive signs against Grand Valley. I'm not convinced that practice alone tells the coaches what they need to know about a player (especially a quarterback), or else Mertens probably wouldn't have been counted on 100% by NDSU this year, and Reed Manke probably wouldn't have had to wait as long as he did to become UND's starting quarterback a few years ago. I think Freund deserves to start and play at least half the game against USD, but maybe not take ALL of the snaps unless he's producing like he did last year and earlier this year.

Good points, but the other side of my thinking is that the Sioux offense is struggling pretty badly right now. Not that it's entirely Freund's fault, but with Landry you have more of a chance to stretch the field because of his arm strength. I would still play Freund in the finale, but I tend to think giving Landry some snaps may be a positive both in terms of seeing what he can do for the future, and giving their defense something else to think about. I love the thought of Landry chucking it deep to Bamba a la Cunningham to Moss circa 1998 (I had to fit in my own Vikes analogy ).

Just a thought, but might it make sense to rotate quarterbacks every second or third series vs. USD? I'm not sure we really want to head into next season with a quarterback who hasn't taken a meaningful snap since the Grand Valley game in '07.

I've added 2008 records for all but the unknown dII opponent.

I doubt the loss was a big deal to too many of these kids, but can you imagine having had potential recruits at the game in Brookings yesterday, with the bitterly cold, windy weather and 3000 fans?

In case anybody was wondering about the source for the Weber St. and SFA games, last night at the Alerus when they had "other scores of interest" on the jumbotron, games against 2009 opponents were denoted with an asterisk.