UND92,96

All too predictable, unfortunately. We're almost certainly going to have less than half the regular season average (10,700) at this game.

No, he shouldn't call them out, but he shouldn't say things that are blatantly false, either. Of course, I didn't see the McNeese game, but the USD defense was flat-out awful against UNO. Taking what Meierkort said at face value, he apparently disagrees. Clearly the guy's a reasonably good coach in terms of wins and losses, but between the odd comments in the media, the bone-headed scheduling (too easy, then too hard), and the fact that he never seems to make effective adjustments to shore up the perennially bad pass defense, you have to wonder about him, too. His predecessor didn't exactly set the bar high, but one playoff appearance in four years isn't all that great, either.

One thing Meierkort said that I found very odd was this (from the above-linked article): What about the UNO game? Also, back in 2005 when USD was left out of the playoffs, Meierkort was on record as saying USD deserved to get in over UND due to the head to head results. Since he never mentioned UMD (8-3 record), the implication was that he thought they DID deserve to get in. The problem with that argument, of course, was that UND had beaten UMD and had one fewer loss. See the flaw in his logic? When three teams are in the running for two playoff spots, and all are 1-1 against the other two, you can't arbitrarily choose one of those teams and claim you deserve to get in over them due to head to head.

Scratch Kliniske. He signed with NDSU for baseball yesterday.

Meierkort has a tendency to say some strange things. Anyway, who cares if they would have made the playoffs with an 8-3 record, since they'd have been on the road for sure, and they're simply not a good road team?

A few things from the coaches' show tonight: -Bagaason is injured and her status sounds like it's up in the air right now; Seay will likely start in her place; -Sannes won't play this weekend due to a relatively minor injury; -Roebuck sounded very excited about Youngblut's potential. It sounds like she could be an impact player.

Here's a [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=57189

I think he's about 6'8", 280. Probably a project, but obviously has tremendous size.

Anthony Kliniske from Grafton is likely getting some interest. He's probably a better baseball prospect, though. Crookston offensive lineman Andrew Anderson has gotten interest from a lot of schools, including Minnesota, NDSU and UND.

As expected, UND is picked to win the NCC in the pre-season coaches' poll. link The question is, which coach besides Roebuck picked USD to win it?

I guess I'm going to resurrect a very old thread here. The new numbers for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007 have been posted on the OPE site, and UND reported revenues of $11,414,689, and expenses of $11,250,249. You can find all the details here.

Weisenstein will chair the search committee: link

On one of the past coaches' shows this year, Lennon sounded very optimistic about some of the young offensive linemen. I'm also still waiting for the emergence of players like Koelln and Hiltner, who I believe were quite highly-regarded coming out of high school. Hiltner is gigantic, and made all the Minnesota all-state teams, including A.P. first team, and the guy who runs the Minnesota preps board was very high on Koelln.

But at least we do return our two best offensive linemen in Braegelmann and Troen, plus Bondy has had to play quite a bit due to Bauer's injury, and I think Erik Moe has played some at guard, also. The line probably won't be as strong as it is this year, but it should still be pretty good.

Ultimately, Dale Lennon is the only one whose opinion really matters with regard to how the co-coordinator situation is working, and I do trust that he'll make the correct decision, whatever that decision may be. It appears that a pretty solid nucleus will be coming back on defense, but I'd really like to see a 300 lb. nose guard, and a big inside linebacker transfer in from either the juco or I-A ranks.

UND is picked fifth in the NCC pre-season poll: link I certainly think it's realistic to expect a bit better than that.

I'm somewhat familiar with some of the young talent on offense and in the secondary, but what about the front seven? Are there any potential run-stuffers waiting in the wings?

I think that if you were to carefully read my post, you would see that nowhere did I blame anyone for anything. It's a legitimate question, particularly considering you just don't seem to see co-coordinators at any other program that I'm aware of. Am I happy with how the run defense performed against UNO and USD? No. Is anyone, players and coaches included? But I don't pretend to know the reasons for the downturn in our run defense the past couple of years. And by "downturn", I'm not talking about the overall numbers so much as against the teams that you know are going to run 80% of the time, but you still can't slow them down. How's this for a sobering statistic?--against the three best backs UND has faced this year--Allen, McNeill and Garner--the Sioux have given up an average of 245 yards per game. What is this, 1986?

Probably, but they only drew 3300 yesterday, and SDSU vs. Southern Utah more closely resembles the UND-Winona matchup than does SDSU vs. NDSU in terms of expected competitiveness.

May as well be an optimist and subscribe to theory one. Here's why: as poor as our run defense looked yesterday, and as poor as it looked throughout most of the UNO game, we still were in a position to win the UNO game late. True, it was at home, but home field hasn't meant much in that series. It's a longshot, but it's possible if our offense plays lights-out and we get a turnover or two on defense. Heck, we beat them last year without forcing a single punt, although clearly their defense is better this year. It also sounds like the injuries are piling up a bit for them. As for GVSU, we simply have no idea how good they are this year, since they have so many new faces, and they haven't had to play any highly-ranked teams. Again, it's unlikely that we would win there, but at this point we simply don't know enough about them to say one way or the other. Key injuries may also be an issue for them right now.

At the risk of stirring the pot--which is really not my intention here--what do people think should happen regarding the defensive coordinator situation next year? As most people know, for the past two years UND has had co-coordinators, which I believe is a rather unusual arrangement. Should Lennon keep things as they are? Pick one or the other? Try to recruit Bubba or Dosch back? Thoughts?

UND lost their last match of the season yesterday, to finish 0-12 in the NCC, and 6-23 overall. Any theories as to why things got so bad after a decent first season for Peterson?

There was an interesting article in today's Herald in which Terry Wanless and Roger Thomas were interviewed regarding their experiences as a.d. [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=56764

Same here. I had meant to post something earlier this week about Mr. Larson's passing because I knew he was a UND basketball great.

I'd much rather see Ashland, just because it would likely be a high-scoring affair, and it would be good to show that the NCC's number 2 team is clearly better than the number 2 team from the GLIAC.