UND92,96

Per the Forum, Josh Horner from Fargo South has committed to NDSU. Probably not much of a surprise there.

I don't believe all of this year's recruits will be getting full scholarships, although presumably some will. You can have a maximum of 85 players getting some sort of scholarship money, so you could have, for example, 40 fulls and roughly 45 halves. I would assume most starters next year will have fulls.

20 or so.

My $.02 is that yes, the home non-conference schedule this year has been quite poor. Yes, it will continue to be poor for at least a couple years. And yes, fan apathy is a big problem. However, on the bright side, after a disappointing start to the season, I do like what I'm seeing out of the team lately. I initially hated the new offense, but it is really starting to work nicely. With regard to not having instate players, the state is producing very few legit dII players, either. The early 90's was clearly an aberration with being able to put together a great team with mostly local talent. In any event, Benter looks like he could be a nice player, and Mathison is red-shirting and will hopefully develop in time. I would hope there's also still a chance to pick up Travis Mertens after this season. NDSU has just two scholarship North Dakota players, but that doesn't seem to be bothering any of their fans. I'm certainly not satisfied with what has transpired over the past decade of UND men's basketball, but I'm more optimistic right now than I was two years ago when we were losing at home to teams like Minot State.

Doesn't it seem like it rains in Florence every year the day of the championship game?

Four North Dakota kids visit; four North Dakota kids commit. Not bad.

6'3", 205 pound Hazen OLB Brian Sorensen has verbally committed to UND. [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=60584

This was discussed briefly on the coaches' show a couple of weeks ago. Basically, both teams need games. In the past, they've played home-and-home most seasons. Bemidji (for whatever reason) didn't want to travel to GF this year. UND didn't want to travel to BSU without a corresponding home game. So this was the compromise. I think what makes it more attractive to UND is the fact that the twin cities are obviously a primary recruiting area.

"If I recall correctly."

Seth Wisthoff has verbally committed to UND. [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=60451

I really have no idea what would have prompted this. Based on the posts on d2football.com, their fans are not happy at all about this, and the a.d., who was pretty unpopular anyway, is really unpopular now.

Randy Hedberg is out as SCSU coach. link You have to wonder if perhaps he might come back to UND should Mussman get the Mankato job? I certainly hope he lands another job somewhere soon. He's a good guy and a good coach.

Congrats to Weston for the making the A.P. Little All America team for the second time! link

Sorry to interrupt this perfectly good argument with some recruiting news, but...per a post on www.northdakotapreps.com, 6'5", 260 pound OL Ian McGurran from Fargo North has verbally committed to UND. He's definitely one of the top couple linemen in the state this year, and possibly the best. Kolpack had a blog entry about him this past summer. It apparently was a rather good first weekend of visits. EDIT: Sweeney just confirmed on the 6:00 WDAZ sports.

Who knows, maybe the fact that both schools' football programs have had their image tarnished in the past year by scandals may also be a reason why a few kids may want to look elsewhere. I don't think anybody is under the misapprehension that UND is going to waltz into Montana and start stealing kids left and right from Montana and Montana State. But there's no harm in targeting a few every year and letting the chips fall where they may. Not everybody wants to attend school close to home.

It probably makes more sense for UND to recruit Montana than it does to recruit South Dakota (which has apparently been all-but-abandoned). South Dakota is recruited hard by three FCS schools (SDSU, NDSU and USD), plus a few dII's. Montana, with roughly 150,000 more population, obviously has two FCS schools but no dII's seriously recruiting there to the best of my knowledge. If a kid is interested in going to school out of state, UND may be a good option. Plus, UND actually did sign two pretty good ones from Montana last year, so there's no reason to think that can't continue.

Jamrog has indeed resigned. According to the Mankato a.d., they want a new head coach in place by the end of January.

UND lost out on a couple of kids to Montana.

The Daktronics all america team has been announced, and Weston Dressler and Ryan Chappell were both named first-teamers, and Brandon Hellevang was named a second-teamer. I wonder how many times a player has failed to make all-conference, but has made at least one all america team, as Hellevang did this year?

The Herald confirms the Hendrickson commit today. [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=60353

He was listed at 6'2", 190 on the Perham roster. You can access the rosters of pretty much every MN high school team at www.mshsl.org (the Minnesota State High School League site). EDIT: I have also heard from a good source that he has indeed committed to UND.

I only saw him in the highlights from the playoff game against Thief River Falls, but he looked extremely fast. He took a couple of snaps from the shotgun in which he simply outran the defense to the corner and went the distance, a la Ryan Chappell. With his speed, he could be utilized in any number of positions.

The UND Foundation will be announcing a "significant gift" to the medical school tomorrow. link

The men's program has been a little down for awhile, and that's affected the fan support. However, the women's program was voted by the women's basketball coaches' association as having "best fans" and "best facility", so that gives a person reason to think that the potential is there for the men's team. The program was drawing more than 4000 per game back in the early 1990's when they were really good.

Congrats to Weston for making the AFCA all america team for the second consecutive year! link