UND92,96

I once e-mailed somebody at the Alerus asking for clarification of this, and it memory serves me the response was that in terms of actual non-suite seats, capacity is around 12,200. I don't believe suites have been included in the official attendance since the 2001 regular season. I also don't recall exactly how many suite seats there are.

Kevin Fee blog on start times. Thoughts?

There's also a certain amount if irony in Kees' complaints, given the fact that in 2003 UND overcame a 28-3 halftime deficit to defeat SCSU. Comebacks do happen.

Blog from St. Cloud Times.

I think there may have been a larger than normal student section. It's hard to say how many military people were there, but I would think that even if none of them showed up again, their seats could easily be filled if a more aggressive marketing campaign were utilized. In other words, I feel that selling out the Alerus on a regular basis is a very realistic goal once the home schedule is a bit more attractive (assuming we continue to have success on the field). Over the first four games last season, we averaged just over 11,100--or roughly 1000 under capacity. With any sort of dI bump, sell-outs should be realistic, although I wouldn't really expect it until next year when we start seeing a stronger home schedule.

There were a lot of positive's to be taken from last night's game, including nice performances by Freund and Trenbeath, no turnovers and over 400 yards of offense. In terms of things that need improvement, I'd say tackling, e.g. how many times did a defender miss the quarterback?; kick coverage; and somebody to emerge as a reliable number two receiver. Not that anybody was dropping passes or anything, but I don't believe we can expect Trenbeath to continue to put up those types of numbers because teams are going to focus their coverage on him until somebody else shows they can be a big threat.

Wow, I'm even more excited about the season after reading this: link

Belotti (#16) has now been added to the roster.

Wayne Nelson picks UND to win 35-21 in today's print edition of the Herald. IMO, if the game is that close, it's not a good sign for the season. Even before the days of Dressler and Chappell, UND has traditionally absolutely owned unranked non-conference opponents at home.

Does anybody know whether there is going to be a coaches' show tonight on 1440 AM?

Here's what the Lone Star Conference columnist from d2football.com had to say about TAMUK this year: I just can't see them giving the Sioux much of a game, unless UND is nowhere near at the level it's been over the past 15 years.

The same info (but in a completely different article) was in the Corpus Christi paper today. Assuming a jump to 63 next season, the large senior class this year, several early departures from the recruiting class of 2007 and Rosario's no-show this year, there should be a very large number of scholarships available for the next recruiting class.

Article from Corpus Christi newspaper.

Herald article on the likelihood of Watkins and Bamba playing as true freshmen.

It's interesting that despite having the reputation as a short-yardage back, Brandon Brady is now listed at 203, while Josh Murray is up to 215. I noticed at the scrimmage last week that Brady has noticeably slimmed-down from past years. He may surprise some people this year with added/re-gained speed.

I'm a little concerned about a possible lack of depth, although not so much about the lack of size (avg. of 6'3 1/2", 280). As mentioned, Braegelmann and Troen are proven commodities. Moe played a fair amount last year, and is quite athletic (state runner-up in discus in h.s.). Bondy is more or less in the traditional UND lineman mode in terms of size, and Koelln came in highly-regarded out of high school and is supposed to be another very athletic lineman. I assume this year is probably a bit of an aberration as opposed to a shift in philosophy, considering the linemen recruited the past couple of years are generally pretty big.

Game notes Looks like there's been a little shuffling on the offensive line, and it appears Watkins won't be red-shirting.

By my count, there are eight kids from the recruiting class of 2007 who are no longer on the roster--Simmons, Kubacki, Bryant, Tru Nguyen, Cory Hanson, Deryk Van Zee, John Carruth and Nick Bylin. Luckily that was a large class. Still, losing one-third of a recruiting class before the start of their second year in the program isn't good. As far as I know, none of them are playing elsewhere right now.

Another example was Newberry a few years ago--a struggling program that brought in several highly-touted I-A transfers. A couple of them were actually pretty good, but not enough to make it much of a game against the Sioux.

Including playoffs, UND is 27-1 at home against non-conference opponents since 1999, and TAMUK is entering the season unranked, so clearly UND should be a pretty heavy favorite. I doubt many are chalking this game up as an automatic win, however. At least five posters on the d2football.com board have actually picked TAMUK to win.

Frankly, I agree that this board would be a better place if some of the troublemakers were banned. Granted, I have a rather extensive "ignore" list so I don't necessarily read most of the nonsense, but it's clearly becoming a bigger problem all the time.

Anderson wasn't in uniform for the scrimmage the other night, so I assume he's injured, although it wasn't anything apparent as he didn't walk with a limp or have on a cast or anything. He's pretty impressive looking in terms of speed (placed in the 100 and 200 at the MN AA track meet a couple of years ago) and height (6'3"), but I haven't actually seen him play. We seem to be getting a bit thin at receiver other than Trenbeath, with only Caufield and Nicholas having any game experience to speak of, and expected contributors Dressler and apparently Anderson both being injured. Somebody--such as Bamba, Daggett or newcomer Cole--may need to step up as we're going to need more than three receivers, particularly with Caufield possibly playing some TE. While there certainly are some young receivers in the program right now in Anderson, Daggett, Bamba, Dressler and Heimler, I have to think this is going to be a position of emphasis in recruiting this year, along with the offensive line. We're losing Trenbeath, Nicholas and Caufield, and there's a relatively small number of underclassmen offensive linemen in the program right now, particularly with the impending loss of three senior starters after this year.

Provo and Nick Long have both been listed on the roster since it was first updated a few weeks ago.

The roster has been updated to add Cole and linebacker Jay Nelson from Wheaton, MN.

Article from today's Herald confirms Cole's addition to the team.