UND92,96

It seems like there are a lot of parallels between Buning's tenure at UND, and Alfonso Scandrett's at MSU-Moorhead. After about two years, Scandrett was "re-assigned" within the MSU athletic department, his contract wasn't renewed, and he apparently went away without a peep. I honestly thought the Buning situation would go down in a similar fashion, but clearly I was wrong.

There's no question that this isn't an easy situation to step into for an "outsider." However, what I think people need to keep in mind, especially now that we know how poorly Buning was graded by athletic department employees, is that by defending Buning, those people are essentially impugning the intregrity of those employees. If this were simply boosters who were unhappy (again, the Wanless example comes to mind), or just a few coaches, then perhaps one could make the claim that Buning was being wronged. However, it was apparently the nearly unanimous sentiment of coaches and staff that he simply wasn't a good leader. Whether intentionally or not, defending Buning now as "just doing his job", as many of the comments on the Herald site basically stated, is essentially a slap in the face to the coaches. Not that they need people like me to defend them, but it just rubs me the wrong way for people who really don't have a good grasp of the situation to think so little of the coaches to suggest that they would try to get somebody fired over something as trivial as cutting a few perks.

I have to stop reading the comments to that article. If these people are representative of the Herald's readership, I'm starting to think that roughly 80% of them must be insane.

Harmeson explains why he can't talk about Buning's "leave of absence." [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=50980

I was referring to the comments left by readers on the Herald website.

I'm not saying that the twins may not still change their minds, but my understanding is that the chances of that happening were a lot better prior to Minnesota's head coaching change.

I had a long "comment" telling off these people all ready to submit, but then I decided against it. What's the point? Anybody who still supports Buning after all we now know (and most of us don't know the half of it) must not have much regard for UND coaches. I choose to believe that if most of the coaches are saying that things are bad, then things must be bad.

Almost unbelievably (at least to me), if you read the "comments" to the Herald story on the Buning survey, they're mostly supportive of Buning! I guess we're supposed to bring him back and get rid of everybody else in the department and start over.

I'm a Rob Bollinger fan, but if he's not interested, and if Ray Purpur still isn't interested, I'd give Terry Wanless a call. And yes, I'm serious. I never had any big problems with him, and any mistakes he made were early on. I always thought he was a pretty good guy, and he could manage a budget, and NOT have all the coaches hate him.

Swyg was mistaken.

WWU utilized a lot of misdirection, as I recall, and it worked pretty well, but the main reason that game was close was because it was the first game post-Manke-injury, and the UND offense was extremely anemic that day.

Herald article on the results of the recent survey of UND athletic department employees: [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=50885

That certainly appears to be true. The second-best team in the GLIAC may be Michigan Tech. Tech lost to Winona State earlier this year.

Ralston and Brekke have been named co-acting a.d.'s. link.

Kevin Fee blog entry.

I don't think it was all that well-kept of a secret that Buning was apparently neither liked nor respected by many within the department if one has read this board for the past year or so. The way this played out was not a pleasant situation, but it wasn't going to get any better had the status quo remained for any longer. I take no pleasure in seeing someone lose his job, but Buning is not a martyr. He brought on most of his own problems, and paid the price for them. I apologize for continuing to bring up the Wanless situation, but again, the difference there was that Wanless was basically doing a good job, and had support from many of the people who worked under him. I don't believe Buning had such backing. One can probably deduce the results of the questionnaire that was sent out to athletic department employees based upon what has transpired in the past five days.

Bollinger is an obvious candidate, but I don't think the events of the past few days are in any way related to clearing the way for a particular candidate. Buning was apparently not well-liked by many alums, OR by many people within the department. At least Wanless apparently had considerable support within the department, even though many alums/fans didn't like him.

I don't see litigation resulting from this. Buning will get paid for whatever the remaining term of his contract is. Hopefully the rumored "probationary" extension of his contract through the end of 2007 turns out to be true. Otherwise, UND will presumably be on the hook until June 2008.

I agree. I was especially troubled when Gene Murphy wasn't properly announced. That was a huge blunder.

I think this excerpt from Bakken's blog tells me all I need to know about why Buning probably needs to go: In terms of the dI experience thing, I'm not concerned about it. UND has plenty of people who are very familiar with dI rules and regulations because we've been dealing with them for years (hockey). In terms of scheduling, there's no shortage of connections, e.g. Jones and his Iowa/Alford/Jacobson/Glas/McDermott connections; Lennon being known and respected throughout college football, etc. We'll be fine there. Give me somebody who is a great fundraiser, and somebody at his right hand who can be the numbers person, and things will be better than they've been in recent years IMO.

Technically, yes. But realistically? No comment. I wondered awhile back how long Buning's contract was extended a few months ago. I'm really wondering now.

Bakken's take.

I'm a little surprised that nobody has commented on this part of the Herald article:

New injuries today were apparently Holinka, Bodoh and Stroup. According to the post-game show on the radio, Holinka is suspected to have some sort of hand injury; Bodoh a knee injury; and Stroup an ankle injury. Chappell apparently only suffered from cramps when he left the game after his last long run.

There is going to be a story on the 10:00 WDAZ news tonight about the possibility of a new outdoor football stadium at UND.