UND92,96

The new roster has been posted.

It's somewhat interesting to look back at this thread. It was a pretty big risk to hire someone with so little experience, and obviously the concerns turned out to justified.

Even though it appears that perhaps Raphael Reynolds may become the primary return man, I could still see Bamba as potentially the other kick returner, assuming UND continues to have two guys deep like Dressler and Chappell were last year.

I went to law school back in the mid-1990's with a guy who played Canadian college football and who did some volunteer coaching at UND, and he told me several times that UND should try to establish a recruiting presence in the Montreal area, because there was a lot of talent there. It took awhile for it to come to fruition, but it looks like he may have been prophetic. It will be interesting to see if UND can pluck one or two from that area every few years.

That is great news. It usually seems to be USD that picks up stud transfer or older-than-average running backs seemingly out of nowhere, and it would be nice if UND could pull that off for a change. We'll have to wait and see how this turns out, but I do like the fact that Mussman seems to be more aggressive in pursuing transfers and Canadians (e.g. Bamba and Fonseca) than Dale Lennon was.

I agree. I'm generally much more worried when there's a new starting quarterback than when there's a new starting running back. Murray is more than capable, and even if Brady's injury problems continue, there's still Solum, and possibly Sutton and the new juco (if that turns out to be true). Anything we get out of walk-ons Battle and Dungy is gravy.

According to the media guide, it was installed prior to the 1998 season.

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If Reynolds does indeed end up at UND and is eligible to play this coming season, I would think this would make red-shirting Bamba and Sutton all but assured. I had thought Bamba may not red-shirt due to the returner positions appearing to be pretty wide open, and if any of the three scholarship backs on the roster (Murray, Brady and Solum) become or already are injured, Sutton may have almost had to play this year barring a late addition such as Reynolds.

I have no idea whether or not this is true, but Reynolds rushed for over 1000 yards last season for a pretty good California juco team. You have to wonder why he'd still be available, though.

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My mistake--it was actually Jordan Mertens who I was looking at in the box score from Wednesday's game. In my defense, there are lot of Jordan's and Mertens playing ball in North Dakota these days, and it's hard not to mix some of them up. I guess neither Allard nor May played.

May isn't playing in these games. Allard scored 4 points last night. The teams will play again tonight in Fargo.

Pretty sad. I just can't understand why this continues to be such a glaring problem year after year.

UND reportedly has a press conference scheduled for tomorrow, apparently to announce its inclusion in an all-sports Great West (as reported on the 5:30 KXJB sports).

Confirmed I'm excited about what this could mean for recruiting.

Hockey--arena full nearly every game. Football--coming off the best regular season average attendance ever. Women's basketball--consistently one of the top-drawing programs in dII and voted "best fans" by the WBCA. Al Davis said it best: "just win, baby." Besides the opportunity to see Jerome Beasley for two years, it's been a long time since the men's program has given the fans much reason to get excited.

You never hear comments like that from anyone associated with the women's program. The obvious reason? Everybody loves a winner. In the early 90's, the men's program was the toast of the town. If you don't consistently win, eventually the interest goes away. Frankly, I think that was kind of a stupid comment by Johnson considering he'll now clearly be playing second-fiddle to Augie in the city of Sioux Falls.

It's interesting that Mannie formerly worked under Rocky Hager at Northeastern.

Another assistant coach has been added: link

I'm not trying to take anything away from the recent women's program recruits--I just think there's been a pretty noticeable lack of impact players brought into the program since the recruiting class that included Kimbrough and Bagaason. I think Privatsky has a chance to fit into that mold if she can recover from her injury, and Youngblut certainly showed some signs this past year, but I'm just a little concerned that the recruiting in Minnesota--and pretty much anywhere besides North Dakota--has really fallen off (IMO) over the past three or four years.

No--I think all the AAA all state offensive linemen last year were seniors.

I would guess that Grand Forks Central offensive lineman Kyle Graham will be looked at pretty closely. He was listed at 6'6", 275 last season.

Jeff Dodson has been named as UND's head baseball coach: link

That is true, but to be fair I think a pretty good argument could be made that the men have done a better job recruiting than the women the past two years. I doubt that will translate into the men having anywhere near as good of a record as the women, as the depth of dI men's basketball is far better than on the women's side, but I wouldn't be surprised if the fortunes of the men's program improves modestly, whereas the women may fall off a bit unless another Langen or Kimbrough-type talent joins the program soon.