UND92,96

Just to show that it's possible to turn things around in one year, remember how horrible Minnesota's defense was last year? They brought in a new coordinator, but I believe only three present defensive starters weren't on the roster last year.

In case people are wondering how this year's defense ranks statistically compared to past years, here are the numbers (regular season only): 2000 217 ypg 13.3 ppg 2001 191 ypg 13.0 ppg 2002 276 ypg 19.2 ppg 2003 304 ypg 19.3 ppg 2004 250 ypg 10.5 ppg 2005 262 ypg 13.0 ppg 2006 314 ypg 17.9 ppg 2007 320 ypg 19.7 ppg 2008 368 ypg 25.3 ppg Over the last four games, UND is giving up 432 ypg and 34.8 ppg. EDIT: I should also point out that 1986 was statistically the worst defense in UND history--449 ypg and 36 ppg.

I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but I think one thing should be abundantly clear--the co-coordinator experiment has now lasted nearly three seasons, and I don't think anybody is particularly happy with the defense during that period of time. Mike Mannausau is the associate head coach, which I interpret as being second in command of the entire program. Why not give him a chance to completely run the defense? Or possibly even bring back Eric Schmidt?

Coincidentally or not, 2005 was also Tim Tibesar's last year as d coordinator.

Missouri State just scored with 19 seconds to go to tie the game. Southern Illinois is a pretty talented team, but between turnovers, personal foul penalties, dropped passes and some generally stupid play, I'm not impressed. FWIW, Missouri State lost to unranked dII Washburn earlier this year. EDIT: SIU just won on a miracle last-second play, but that doesn't change the fact that they didn't look very impressive.

This doesn't look like any Lennon-coached team I've ever seen. SIU has five turnovers, and just had a punt blocked and returned for a td. Missouri State is up 7-3 with just under 4:00 to go in the third quarter.

Wow. SIU is dominating, but due to four first half Saluki turnovers, the game is still scoreless.

This game is on right now on Fox College Sports. It's channel 315 if you have digital cable in Grand Forks.

I've been wondering for awhile when we might see wr Chris Anderson on the field, and it sounds like it may happen tonight: link

While your prediction is not necessarily unrealistic, this score would be the most lop-sided UND loss since 2002. I think the game will be decided by 10 or less.

Wasn't it Ron McNeil himself who floated the idea of "Roughriders" as a replacement for Fighting Sioux? From Theodore Roosevelt's wikipedia bio: I don't honestly think the Board would ever allow "Cavalry" anyway, but if it did happen and some Native Americans didn't like it, as far as I'm concerned it could be blamed on Ron--both in terms of the dropping of the "Fighting Sioux" name and logo, and the replacement name. I'm comfortable with that.

Here's the new Gridiron Power Index: link. 6. Cal Poly 18. Southern Illinois 22. UC Davis 24. SDSU 34. NDSU 35. UND 38. SE Louisiana 41. Southern Utah 72. USD 94. Idaho St.

Apparently Trenbeath didn't practice yesterday, so perhaps his injury is more serious than previously believed? link

Game Notes

I believe the coaches' poll is the only one which still has NDSU in the top 25. For whatever reason, they've seemingly been consistently ranked higher in this particular poll than in any other.

On Sioux Sports Extra last night, Mussman's comments seemed to suggest that as between Caufield and Trenbeath, Caufield's injury may be at least somewhat serious, whereas Trenbeath's probably wasn't but that was just the impression I got.

In all honestly, this is probably the least confident I've been heading into a game since the UNI game two years ago. Obviously we know how that game turned out. But as much as I'd love to think a similar result is possible, the Sioux defense right now scares me, particularly since UC-Davis is likely far better than any UND opponent this year so far. And it only gets tougher the following week. On the other hand, UND is not used to being a big underdog, so hopefully the team will flourish in that role.

Considering all we've heard about how attendance has greatly increased at SDSU since the dI move, I was very surprised that they drew just 8311 for a night game against the 5th-ranked team in FCS. If the weather was anything like it was in Grand Forks last night, that certainly wasn't a reason to stay away as it was quite nice.

This was in the Herald today: link

Southern Illinois over Youngstown 33-0.

Four int's and a lost fumble for Nick Mertens.

The actual box score hasn't been posted yet, but according the "live stats" link on www.fightingsioux.com, WWU had 481 yards of offense, which is even more than they had in last year's game.

According to Dan Hammer it was 12,100 and change.

We've now given up over 100 points the past three games. Either the scheme doesn't work anymore; it's not being run properly; or else we don't have the talent necessary to have a good defense. Regardless, something needs to change.

Blurb from the Strib.