UND92,96

The loss to McNeese State (FCS team) doesn't really count for purposes of playoff selections. For that matter, UND's win over Southern Utah (and Northern Iowa last year) are/were also essentially irrelevent for playoff selection purposes. Perhaps more accurately, games against non-dII opponents can be considered, but they are not one of the main criteria. link

It sounds like Bauer is out for sure, and Stroup is still questionable. Everybody else is apparently good to go.

I didn't mean to imply you did. But another poster has. More than once. With regard to leaks, I think they've come from a variety of sources. I'm not commenting on whether it's right or wrong.

I suppose people can decide for themselves whether I'm credible or not, but I know for a fact that Dan Martinsen was not the source for the information posted on this site regarding the lack of passes for coaches' families, etc. Yes, he received an e-mail about it, but a lot of other people knew about this issue, as well. A number of people were upset about the situation. It's not important who the poster was, or where he/she got the information, but it did not come either directly or indirectly from Dan Martinsen. I'm not here to argue whether certain leaks should or should not have happened, but I don't like it when people are blamed for things they did not do.

Trust me, I'm not trying to muddy the waters. But so long as you continue to rip Martinsen, I and others will come right back to the real issue, and that's Buning's job performance. If you don't approve of the way he was apparently fired, that's your prerogative. I guess I consider continually bringing up the Martinsen angle, to the extent there even is one, to be muddying the waters, but maybe that's just me. Heck, as long as you're at it, don't forget about Buning's other excuses, namely Roger Thomas and the "mascot issue" (Buning's words, not mine).

Well, I'm still trying to figure out what Buning expected to gain by taking his "leave of absence." It dragged this thing out much longer than necessary, and largely created the "circus" IMO. He is going to get a buyout of his contract whether he took the "leave of absence" or not. I'm quite sure several alums are/were willing to write a check to make him go away. Terry Wanless knew what he was doing by going away quietly, and he landed on his feet again. After this episode, I think Buning will have a much tougher time finding another job in college athletics administration than Wanless did, and it took Wanless a long time to find another good job.

I believe at least seven of the 18 head coaches at UND were hired by Buning. One would think that if he had been doing an adequate job, he would at least have had their support, and his performance review would have been much higher than it was. If I remember correctly, the Herald article on the survey contained only one positive comment about his job performance, and that was from an assistant coach.

I really don't know how to feel about UND's chances in this game. The Sioux defense has had some struggles, but most have occurred on the road. UNO has some impressive performances, but has only played two road games, and they were against Kearney and Augie, neither of whom are close to UND in terms of talent. Both of those games were pretty competitive until the end. UNO has had more success in Grand Forks than any visiting team in the past decade, but how much do past results really matter in the present? I have a feeling UNO's defense may be a bit overrated, and UND's a bit underrated. UND has the total package offensively, while UNO's receivers are pretty ordinary IMO. I have a feeling UND will win, but they must avoid turnovers, do a better job covering kickoffs, and hopefully do a better job containing Miller when he scrambles than they did last year. It should be a great one.

Again, it would be nice to know the date of the e-mail to provide some context. I certainly can't speak for Jon, but I suspect that may have been written pre-"leave of absence."

I think Goska (the quarterback) and the receivers are going to be good. I know Lennon mentioned that the offensive linemen as a group were pretty impressive, but I'm not sure who exactly has stood out. I'm guessing the kid from Montana may be one. I'm going to be very interested to see how Schaan (defensive end) does once he puts on some weight. He's supposed to be quite a pass rusher. As a whole, I think this is going to be an extremely good class.

I agree with everything in this post. I haven't heard anything negative about Dan Martinsen from people who have actually met him, other than from Tom Buning.

There is a lower price for 12 and under, but not high school age. However, if you were to buy a ticket today, it would be $10 due to the Tuesday special.

I believe the resignations occurred before the leave of absence. It would have been helpful had Fee given the dates of the e-mails.

Kevin Fee blog.

I think it can only help to have such a great hockey matchup that night. I can only hope that anybody in town for the hockey game would also go to the football game.

Actually, I believe it was the national committee that overturned the regional committee. Regional committees submit recommendations, but the national committee has final say. I can't remember who it was that was interviewed before the first playoff game, but he confirmed that the regional committee had UND at number 2.

That's the "beauty" of the system. Winona knows if they play a couple of decent non-conference opponents, split with them, and go through the NSIC schedule with no more than one loss, they're in the playoffs every year. At least until next year when their conference schedule gets more challenging.

Here they are: 1. Nebraska-Omaha 5-0 2. North Dakota 6-0 3. Grand Valley 5-0 4. C. Washington 4-1 5. Ashland 3-1 6. South Dakota 3-3 7. Winona State 5-1 8. Michigan Tech 4-3 9. Minnesota State 3-3 10. Indianapolis 5-1 11. Hillsdale 4-2 12. Minnesota-Duluth 3-3

The problem for the NCC right now is that the GLIAC (minus GVSU) is only marginally better than the NSIC (IMO). What that means is that GVSU has a relatively easy time running through the conference undefeated, all but guaranteeing them homefield throughout the playoffs. Not that GVSU probably isn't the best team anyway, but when you add homefield into the equation, they're going to be all but impossible to beat. If they had to travel to any two of UND, UNO, USD and CWU in a given year, plus the occasionally dangerous UMD and Mankato, would they go unbeaten every year? I doubt it. I think the only way for GVSU to get knocked off is for either UND or UNO to go undefeated, as unlikely as that may be. That would give one of those two teams homefield, and at least in the case of UND, would give them a good chance to knock off the Lakers. I can't quite bring myself to say UNO would beat them due to the playoff jinx they have going.

The regional poll hasn't been released yet, but I'm going to guess it will be 1. UNO; 2. UND; 3. GVSU. I don't think GVSU can possibly have a high enough strength of schedule right now to get the number one ranking. Remember, this is supposed to be based almost entirely on a numerical formula, with little to no human element involved.

It's hard to say, because I've only seen the home games, and besides the second half against CWU, the defense has been pretty good at home. Based upon the comments from the coaching staff after the Augie game, it seemed as though they made a conscious effort to have a much more aggressive game plan in that game, and clearly it worked well. Yesterday, based upon a few comments from people who were at the game, it sounded like perhaps they went back to being somewhat passive, but whether or not that's true I can't say. I do think Stroup's presence seems to make a big difference. I would expect that he'll play against UNO if at all possible. I have to admit that I have some questions about the wisdom of having co-defensive coordinators. Does any other program do this?

UNO is a very good team, and based upon the past decade I think it's safe to say UND will need to play extremely well to win. It must be pointed out, however, that this is the first true road test for UNO. Their two road games so far were at Kearney and Augie, and both of those games were relatively competitive.

Although I'm disappointed in the defensive performances in three of the last four games, there is some recent history to suggest that you don't necessarily need a shut-down defense to achieve some pretty great things. For example, in 2003, UND went undefeated in NCC play, and made it all the way to national championship game despite giving up 31 points to Mesa State, 28 to St. Cloud, 35 to UNO and 29 to Winona State. And that Sioux offense wasn't even remotely as good as this year's. So there's still hope that with some modest improvement by the defense, this team could still make some serious noise in the post season.

Considering how successful the UND defense was last week by being more aggressive than they'd been, I'm surprised they would have gone back to an "unaggressive"--for lack of a better word--gameplan this week.

The strange thing is that before today, the last several times UND had played Mankato, their offense couldn't score much at all. I'm not sure why today was so different. When UND gives up more points and yards against Mankato than Augie did, something doesn't quite add up.