UND92,96

I noticed that this came up on the ticketmaster site as one of the reasons tickets may not be available: My guess is that there probably still are at least some tickets available, although obviously it would be great to see a sellout.

Mussman indicated tonight on the coaches' show that Saporu is questionable for the game this Saturday, and that if he doesn't play he will red-shirt after all.

Game Notes

I'm not positive, but I don't believe there are any promotions/deals this week. Homecoming attendance is generally among the highest of the season, and I don't recall any ticket promotions for homecoming in the past (although I could be wrong).

UND is #39 in the Gridiron Power Index: link Also, that same index ranks the conferences as follows: Rank, League, Total Average 1. Colonial Athletic Association (23.34) 2. Southern Conference (29.07) 3. Great West Football Conference (30.65) 4. Big Sky Conference (31.15) 5. Southland Conference (33.46) 6. Missouri Valley Football Conference (34.91)

Just curious, but is this speculation or is it more or less a done deal, i.e. Guinn's position change?

WWU has a good quarterback, but with UND's secondary presumably much healthier now hopefully the Sioux pass defense can be more effective than the last couple of games. I don't believe WWU's defense is much better than last year (gave up 50 or more vs. both Central and Eastern Washington), so even with some rust from the long layoff I would hope UND's offense can put up some pretty big numbers again.

Homecoming last year vs. Augie drew just over 12,100. I'm guessing at least 11,500 this year, and hopefully more.

I suspect this is true, although there may not be a contract signed yet. FWIW, I checked the future schedules on the official Hawaii athletics site, and they do not yet include a game against UND.

Impressive.

Just a hunch, but I suspect the juco recruiting is only going to be a temporary thing. The reality is that we are thin at certain positions, and playing young kids before they're ready may not be in anyone's best interests. We have a ton of scholarship money available this year, so we should hopefully be able to get some immediate impact help via either juco or FBS transfers. The interesting thing to watch for is whether the offense can reload next year despite the losses of Freund, Trenbeath, Braegelmann, Troen, etc. Whereas once UND known mostly for its defense, the past three years have really reversed that trend, as the offense has obviously been the team's strength. Can that continue? Or is the defense ready to become a dominant unit again to take some pressure off the offense?

Unfortunately SELA ended up losing 48-45.

The UND Foundation had a very good year: link

I would say that the job is probably Landry's to lose, but I am very curious about some of the younger quarterbacks, particularly Goska and Hendrickson. I believe both would provide more running ability, but less arm strength, than Jake. Hendrickson is reportedly very fast, and when Goska signed Lennon compared him to Grand Valley's Cullen Finnerty.

I was thinking the exact same thing. Had this been a non-conference opponent and UND would have been in a position to demand a return trip, I suspect the game may have happened. But with Cal Poly, the future games are already scheduled by the Great West. I'm generally not in favor of travelling to play an opponent two years in a row, unless it's an FBS team and a big guarantee is involved.

I thought I would revive this thread--not to talk about the coordinator situation; but rather because it had some good discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of last year's defense. Through the first half of the 2008 schedule, do people feel like progress has been made compared to last year? One positive is that we haven't given up the huge rushing numbers so far this year, which was a problem for much of last season. Of course, we probably haven't really played a great running team yet, either.

I wasn't the one who said Freund is the best quarterback in the Dakota's. I think he very well may be, but the post saying that was made by someone else.

USD travelled to McNeese last year, I believe. They were evidently able to get a home-and-home with them, with a one-year delay.

Sorry, typo on my part.

Interesting that Kolpack voted SE Louisiana as no. 23 in his submission to the media poll: link.

And yet somehow USD managed to get a home-and-home with them? Strange. Obviously this season is a situation where we just needed games and couldn't be too demanding, but I certainly hope this is the last season in which we accept a one-game road-only contract with any FCS opponent.

I didn't see the show last night--are you saying this was a one-game contract in which UND presumably got a small guarantee, or just that SE won't be coming to GF next year (but will in a future year)?

Sagarin 106 Southern Illinois 150 UC-Davis 162 SE Louisiana 164 UND 165 Southern Utah 184 Idaho St. 186 USD

Another rather surprising result yesterday in a game featuring a former UND rival: 42 NW Mo. St. 0 UNO The game was in Omaha.

Has anyone heard whether Ryan Dressler, Chris Anderson and/or Noah Dombrovski are going to be able to play this year?