UND92,96

I'd say in all likelihood most of the their fans and local media simply don't understand what kind of football was played in the NCC. I don't necessarily blame them for thinking they should win if they didn't bother to do the research on UND or on how our former NCC brethren (other than UNC) did right out of the chute after the transition to FCS football. I'm just a little disappointed we didn't close the deal better after being up 31-7 early in the third. It would have been cool to have beaten them by a score similar to what Boise St. did a few weeks ago. We were well on our way to doing so.

Certainly there are going to be different situations for different people, and I completely understand that. I'm only focusing on the raw numbers and making certain generalizations. This year's senior class had an excellent rate of retention. By my count, 16 of the 21 players used all four years of eligibility. But the class of 2005 has not been so good--losing 12 of 24 early. And the classes of 2006 and 2007 are looking more like the 2005 class than the 2004 class so far. I certainly don't expect to retain 75% of every recruiting class, but I'd like to think 60% or so is a realistic goal.

It would just be nice if more players had the patience to put in their time long enough to actually earn the reward of playing time. Justin Muscha is a good example of somebody to emulate. He came in as a walk-on, and finally got his chance to start last year as a 5th-year senior. Too many of these kids leave after a year or two. If they don't have the patience to work hard and wait their turn, they should never have agreed to accept even a partial scholarship. I can maybe accept somebody leaving after three years if it doesn't look like playing time is going to be in the cards, but not after only one or two years.

Not only recruit, but retain more of the recruits we get for four/five years. That's been a problem in recent years. That's a big part of the reason there is so little depth at certain positions right now, particularly on the o-line. Not trying to be a wet blanket though--I have faith that Mussman and staff will get it done.

Probably, but don't forget how senior-laden this year's offense is. Luckily, we should still have Josh Murray!

SE Louisiana threw for 330 yards against USD, so I'm sure they're licking their chops. I guess the good news is that USD's pass defense is generally worse than ours. Hopefully Otto and/or Saporu will be ready to go by then.

The more I read about Idaho State's defense, the better I like the matchup. Last year, they gave up nearly 300 yards per game through the air. This year, while Boise St. threw for big yards against them, they also gave up nearly 250 yards on the ground against Idaho, who Sagarin has as the worst FBS team in the country. According to Mussman on the coaches' show last night, they're also going to be starting a true freshman at safety after benching the previous starter.

From a somewhat selfish standpoint, I agree. But from Cal Poly's standpoint, I can kind of understand. If they were to lose to a non-counter, any chance of them making the playoffs would be pretty much out the window (see Northern Iowa in 2006 as an example). It's the ridiculous NCAA policy of counting all transitional FCS programs the same in the first year--whether they're at 0 or 63 scholarships--which is to blame here. As if the four-year period of playoff ineligibility isn't enough of a penalty, they evidently felt they had to make it next to impossible to schedule in the first year of the transition. Exactly what that's intended to accomplish, I don't know.

The problem was that once we lost four schools from the NCC, and could only find one true replacement (UMD) with no other candidates willing to step up to the plate, it just wasn't the same. It was only going to take one more defection for the league to fall apart, and in such an unstable situation, you can either act or react. IF we still had the NCC of 2000, I'd have been more than happy staying dII. But I look at the current situation for SCSU, Augie, Mankato and UMD and have absolutely no regrets whatsoever for the decison to go dI.

The only way that could be justified is that if they have to play a non-counter, they want to make certain it's a non-counter they are definitely going to beat.

Mussman mentioned on the coaches' show that Saporu won't be making the trip to Idaho St., and as he apparently did when you asked the question, said he'll likely be back by the Western Washington game. That would mean he'd at most be playing five games of a 10-game schedule.

I can't help but think this may be the week we see Bamba returning kicks. What better way for him to get more involved?

So I'm assuming that basically UND's current ranking is based almost entirely on the Southern Utah win last year, possibly along with the fact that Western Washington beat UC-Davis, and UND beat Western Washington last year?

I have no idea how Sagarin's computer rankings work, but it's amazing to me that he has UND at #22 among all FCS schools considering our schedule so far.

While the context was quite different, another columnist from a regional newspaper also recently took a curious pot shot at UND/Grand Forks: link

If Murray can string together a few more 180 yard, 3 td games, maybe he can work his way into the starting lineup?

Interesting. I suppose it's possible that Saporu simply has no interest in red-shirting, but with three good corners already (Otto, Hawkins and Watkins), it doesn't necessarily seem like corner is a big position of need. It just seems like this would be a perfect year to red-shirt, given the fact that the schedule is only going to get better in the future, and there are only 10 games this year.

I still have to shake my head at the fact that South Dakota St. is presently a consensus top-15 team (and maybe better than that). John Stiegelmeier has been the head coach there since 1997, and if you look at his record, SDSU was a 7-4 type program year in and year out as an NCC school, and they've been the same as an FCS school. Stiegelmeier was 1-6 vs. UND. They also were very slow to add scholarships after going dI. So my question is, is this just one of those flukey things (a perennially unranked dII program is now a pretty strong FCS program under the same coach), or is this more or less proof that UND should be an FCS power rather quickly?

That's good to see. Once a player has been removed from the roster, it seems pretty rare for him to re-appear.

Just an FYI, the coaches' show in on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday night this week, since the team will be flying to Idaho on Wednesday.

Corner Delano Saporu hasn't even been in uniform for the first three games. Considering he didn't red-shirt as a true freshman, and that Dominique Hawkins has played quite well as his replacement, might the coaching staff consider red-shirting him this year? I can't imagine he'll play on Thursday if he didn't even suit up yesterday, and once you've missed four of ten games, it seems like kind of a waste to use up a whole year of eligibility for six games (at most).

No offense intended, but there's a perception out there, fueled in part by some of the media covering NDSU, that once you get outside the top 25, there's not a lot of good FCS teams. Whether that's real or just perception remains to be seen. The early FCS success of an NCC (our old dII conference) also-ran like SDSU also seems to support that notion. Again, no offense intended--it's just my opinion that the strongest dII programs, of which UND was one, can compete quite favorably with most of FCS. My opinion, until proven otherwise, is that UND can play with, and beat, any unranked FCS teams, and probably some ranked ones (see 2006 vs. Northern Iowa, or 2003 NDSU vs. Montana as examples, and NDSU didn't even make the dII playoffs that year).

Idaho St. is 0-2 this season, losing to Boise St. 49-7, and to Idaho 42-27. If you want to put any weight into computer rankings, Sagarin had UND at 134 last week, Idaho at 159 and Idaho St. at 185. Idaho St. was 3-8 last season, and was picked to finish 8th (out of 9 teams) in the Big Sky this year. My feeling is that this is a game UND can and should win. It probably won't be easy, particularly with the very short prep time, but I suspect the Sioux offense should be able to do some damage against what is apparently a pretty porous ISU defense. Unless ISU is much better than advertised, it would be a pretty big disappointment to lose to one of the worst Big Sky teams.

It seems as though perhaps USD doesn't have the same caliber of running back that they've had the past five years between Logan and Allen. I really thought they'd beat SE Louisiana. Barely losing would be much more acceptable had SE Louisiana actually been a ranked team, a la Northern Iowa last week. But losing to a team apparently nowhere near the top 25 seems like a big step backward from their performance against Northern Iowa. Obviously we'll get to see for ourselves what SE Louisiana is all about soon enough.

24 Portland St. 38 UC-Davis 14 Humboldt St. 30 Western Washington