UND92,96

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

I believe he was very interested in it the last time it was open (2004?), but the big question mark now is whether the NSIC will do away with their ridiculous scholarship limit in the near future. At 36 scholarships, I think Mankato could become a dII power under the right leadership. But at 25 scholarships, I don't believe they'll be able to compete very well with the traditional dII powers.

It sounds like there's a pretty good chance MSU-Mankato head coach Jeff Jamrog could be heading back to Nebraska to be an assistant under Pellini. If so, I would think Chris Mussman would be a strong candidate for the Mankato head coaching job. He was an offensive coordinator there prior to coming to UND.

I'm not sure about her injury status, but she has a hard time staying out of foul trouble, and he's shooting just 39% despite the fact that most of her shots are from within about six feet. With the perimeter players struggling to knock down outside shots, you almost have to play Langen and Kimbrough as many minutes as possible because they're the only consistent scoring threats right now.

Oh what a difference a year can make. Last year, with basically the same personnel for Mayville, UND won 105-57.

IMO, this phenomenon started during the last couple of years of the Rich Glas regime, and it was more or less a silent form of protest of the state of the program. I will admit that I did it a fair number of times myself. Whether or not that now makes me a hypocrite, I don't know. Anyway, it now seems as though it's become almost standard practice for a lot of people to leave either after the women's game or at halftime of the men's game who I don't believe did this before three or four years ago. I guess I just don't understand why the current staff and players should be held responsible for what took place before they got here. After this year, I suppose it will be something of a moot point since there will rarely, if ever, be doubleheaders again.

It's pretty sad how many people continue to leave the men's games at halftime when there's a doubleheader. Granted, the first half performance wasn't good, but that doesn't seem like a good reason to leave, particularly since the men had been playing good ball the past few games.

This is unconfirmed, but according to a poster on the north dakota preps board, Nichols has verbally committed to UND. He's an outstanding athlete, and would be a very nice start to this recruiting class.

It's becoming increasingly clear that shooting is a problem for this year's Sioux team. Of the 10 players who normally play, seven have a shooting percentage of less than 40%, and that includes two post players.

According to a post on the north dakota preps board, in addition to Wisthoff, Seth Nichols (Dakota Prairie QB), Ian McGurran (Fargo North OL) and Brian Sorensen (Hazen RB/LB) were North Dakotans who visited UND this past weekend. In terms of size and speed, Sorensen sounds somewhat similar to Matt Anderson from Cavalier. He placed fifth at state in the 200m, and ran on state-winning 4x100 and 4x200m relays last spring. Wisthoff is also a good track and field performer, as he won both the shot and disc at state last year.

Unfortunately for him, it could be a rather long wait. Current a.d. Bowlsby isn't particularly old, and he was hired within the past two years. But if his wife is truly dead-set against dealing with the weather in North Dakota, that probably all but rules him out.

Does anybody know where his wife is from? I'm guessing she's not from the area, but I don't know. I don't honestly expect that he'll apply this time around, but with the name "Purpur", you kind of have to think that hockey is in his blood to some extent, and that's something he'll never get the opportunity to work with in Palo Alto. Also, 12 years as an assistant a.d. is kind of a long time. What are the chances of him eventually getting the a.d. job at Stanford? Does that matter to him? Even if that is his ultimate goal, perhaps getting experience completely running the show at a different school can only help him in the long run?

On the coaches' show a few weeks ago, Jones said something to the effect that Doyle is actually back from his injury sooner than expected, but also that he's behind all the guards playing ahead of him. I feel bad for him, but honestly I thought after last year that he might be better off not coming back for a fifth year. That may seem harsh to an extent, but I sort of expected he may struggle for playing time, particularly after suffering a second serious knee injury. Maybe he's just happy to be on the team for one more year, and if so then more power to him. But if he really thought he was going to play a big role this year, then it's kind of a sad situation.

Bob- Do you think last night was simply a sub-par performance by GVSU, or does it show that had they actually had to play tough road games during the regular season, they wouldn't have been undefeated? I know NWMSU is good, but in addition to their loss to UNO they had a number of very close games this year against teams that really weren't all that great (Pitt State, Central Missouri, Fort Hays and Washburn), so it doesn't appear as though they are so dominant that you would have necessarily expected they would rack up that many points and yards against GVSU, and be able to pull away in the fourth quarter like they did.

Grand Valley is looking very mortal right now, as NW Missouri is taking it them. Like UND, NW Missouri lost to UNO this year; but unlike UND, that wasn't enough to prevent them from getting homefield against the Lakers. NWMSU 34, GVSU 16 FINAL